A CONFUSION^ 
OF TONGUES i«^ 



PAUL REVERE 
FROTHINGHAM 




Class 
Boole 






:Ea^ 



CopyiigMN".. 



CDEkTRIGHT DEPOSm 



PUBLISHED BY 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



A CONFUSION OF TONGUES. 
THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE. 
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. An Addrest. 
With Frontispiece. 



9L Confuje^ion of €ongueier 



9 

Confusion of Conpes 



BY 



PAUL REVERE FROTHINGHAM 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
1917 






COPYRIGHT, I917, BY PAUL REVERB FROTHINGHAM 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published March iqjy 



Us^ 



APR -4 1917 



©CI.A457809 
I'M."' / * 



ContentjS 

Introduction ...... vii 

I. A Confusion of Tongues . , 1 

II. The Conduct of Life . . .25 

III. A Motto . . . . . 51 

IV. The Little Book . . . .71 
V. Making the Best of Things . 97 

VI. How TO Choose , . . .121 

VII. The "If" and "Though" of Faith 149 

VIII. Extra Pennies . . . .173 

IX. The Departure into Egypt. . . 1 99 
X. Unshaken Things . . . .223 



9L €onfUje(ton of €on0ue^ 



INTRODUCTION 



i 



INTRODUCTION 



We have been living in a new and 
unfamiliar world since August 1914. A 
great gulf is fixed between the things 
that were thought and done before that 
date and those which have been thought 
and undertaken since. Moreover, what 
has come to pass is destined to remain 
essentially unchanged for the rest of our 
days. Henceforth we are doomed — 
those of us who have reached maturity 
or middle-age — to read of war and, 
more or less constantly, to think of 
war so long as we have eyes and minds 
with which to read and think at all. 

The War itself, of course, will come 
to an end — in time: but not so the 
thoughts which have been aroused, the 

ix 



^Fntroliuction 

burdens which have been incurred, the 
sadness which has been experienced, 
the doubts which have been awakened. 
These have come to stay, whether for 
better or for worse, whether to guide us 
or confuse. And yet, in most respects, 
of course, the world remains the same. 
It could not well be otherwise ; for hu- 
man duties and desires are eternal, while 
the deep things of the soul abide un- 
changed through convulsions, catastro- 
phes, and unprecedented losses. In other 
words, although the world is in con- 
fusion, individual conduct and the prin- 
ciples which make all conduct beautiful 
and good, survive unshaken and have 
suffered no eclipse. 

It is of these unshaken things a recent 
writer ' speaks when he says : ** We 
shall hear no more of the little cults that 

^ A. G. Gardiner, The War Lords. 
X 



3^ntroliuction 

used to amuse us with their affectations 
of gravity. They have gone in the gen- 
eral conflagration. Henceforth v^e shall 
be concerned not about the decorations 
of life, but about its foundations. . . . 
For the world has gone to a school that 
will change all its scheme of values." 
Of these ^^foundations of life "it is al- 
ways profitable to think ; but never more 
so than in the present moment. While 
hundreds of thousands of people in other 
and older lands are suffering bravely, 
and enduring heroically, and dying cheer- 
fully for what they hold to be the right, 
it is for us, in a land where peace is not 
without its perplexities, to live, so far as 
is possible, earnestly, unselfishly, hope- 
fully, and well. 

• The chapters that follow in this little 
book do not deal directly with the Great 
War, nor do they discuss its problems ; 

xi 



S^ntrobuction 

but they all reflect, in some measure, its 
terrifying glare, and none of them would 
be the same except for the colossal 
tragedy across the sea. In themselves, 
the separate and more or less disjointed 
essays represent an attempt to ease a 
little the present mental strain, to re- 
store the confidence of people, and to 
lead the mind back to the everlasting 
verities of life and duty. Christopher 
Benson has well said : " We cannot at 
this time disengage our thoughts from 
the War : we cannot and we ought not. 
Still less can we take refuge from it in 
idle dreams of peace and security. But, 
at a time when every book and paper 
that we see is full of the War and its 
sufferings, there must be men and women 
who would do well to turn their hearts 
and minds a little way from it, and to let 
their spirits have a wider range." 

xii 



S^ntrotiuctiott 

Such is the purpose of this brief vol- 
ume, and with this intent it is offered to 
the pubhc. Its message and its plea are 
a reminder that, "though worlds may 
crash and fall about us, the Cross en- 
dures/' 



CljajJter #ne 



A CONFUSION OF TONGUES 



A CONFUSION OF TONGUES 



The 'story of the Tower of Babel is 
familiar. It has come of late to have a 
new significance. The War has found 
its way to the neighborhood of the scene 
which gave the legend birth. For, near 
the site of ancient Babylon and not far 
from Kut-el-Amarah, there still may be 
seen, so we are told,' a gigantic ruin. 
A shapeless mass, it hfts itself above the 
desert sands, serving for miles around as 
a landmark watched for by native shep- 
herds and nomad merchants. 

That ruin is all that remains of an an- 
cient temple once dedicated to the great 
god Bel. Originally it was one of the most 

* The Bible for Learners, vol. i, p. 89. 
3 



31 ConfujBfion of €ongucitf 

enormous and magnificent buildings of 
proud and stately Babylon. Its height, 
we are assured, was such that it far 
exceeded the Great Pyramid of Egypt. 
But, when Babylon was destroyed, this 
great temple was destroyed ; and thus it 
came about that the Hebrews of succeed- 
ing generations saw it but a mass of 
ruins. Babel, which signifies God's Gate, 
they mistook for their own word, bdlal, 
which means to confuse or confound: and 
they told this story of the giant structure. 
The people of the old days, they said, 
all spoke the same language. United 
thereby, and proud in their strength, they 
determined to construct a tower that 
should reach to heaven. The work went 
on apace. The tower rose and rose in 
height until, at length, the Lord became 
alarmed. Human beings must some- 
how be restrained. Their building was 

4 



a ConfujSion of €ongueia? 

too vast, A check must be given their 
ambition. So God devised this very simple 
plan : He set them to speaking different 
languages. Suddenly their speech became 
confused. And now the brickmakers 
could not understand the orders given by 
the masters. Those who mixed the mor- 
tar did not know what the teamsters and 
the hod-carriers were talking about. And 
thus they fell apart. Bewildered and at 
variance, they became separated into hos- 
tile groups and their mighty work was 
checked and left unfinished. 

Such, according to the story, was the 
origin of different languages ; and differ- 
ence in language led to a loss of con- 
structive power. So long as people were 
of one speech and understood each other, 
they could work together; and, working 
together, they built toward heaven. No 
sooner, however, did diversity of speech 

5 



^ ConfUiEfion of ^otiguejef 

occur than they became estranged; sepa- 
ration followed estrangement and the task 
they had in hand was left to suffer and 
to fall into decay. 

As a scientific theory, offered in ex- 
planation of a world-wide fact, this story 
is, of course, absolutely worthless. It is 
utterly without foundation. Not thus, nor 
in any way remotely like it, did the va- 
rious languages of the world arise. We 
now know that language, like all things 
else, has grown. There never was any 
one, original, God-given tongue. Man's 
acquisition of speech was a result of his 
gregarious habits. Language is wholly 
and solely a social institution. Man speaks 
to impart his thoughts, and speech grew up 
on a basis of sounds. A solitary man never 
would have developed a language since 
the need for it never would have arisen. 

Moreover, the thing that language grew 

6 



31 ConfuiSion of CongueiS 

out of is a thing that it promotes — and 
that is social intercourse and coherency 
of effort. Men who speak the same lan- 
guage are naturally and inevitably drawn 
together and held together. The "bar- 
barian/' to a Greek, was a man who spoke 
in a tongue differing from his own — a 
tongue which sounded hke ha-ha and 
which he could not understand. 

That old story of the Hebrews has, 
therefore, an important moral lesson, and 
one which bears alike upon individual 
life and upon community effort. Here 
were men who were working together, 
doing mighty, heaven-reaching things. 
But they fell apart and their work was 
destroyed because they ceased to speak 
a common language. No sooner, there- 
fore, do we look upon language in its 
larger bearings, as a medium for express- 
ing thoughts, ideas, and principles of life, 

7 



31 Confusion of CongueiBf 

than we come to see the lesson that the 
ancientlegendhastoteachus. And surely, 
in its far-reaching consequences, it is a 
lesson which has a tragic and an awful 
meaning for us in the present time. 

It is somewhat customary to speak of 
people as using different languages when 
they simply come at things from a differ- 
ent avenue of approach. The language 
of the poor man is different from the 
language of the rich man. The language 
of the man who receives wages is differ- 
ent from the language of the man who 
pays them. Hence it is that, so frequently, 
such people fail to understand each other. 
They move in different spheres and each 
to the other is, in the ancient Greek sense 
of the word, more or less of a barbarian. 
It was Rabelais, whose name has come 
to be a synonym for the cynics and the 
scoffers of the race, who said long years 

8 



I 



at ConfUiBfion of Congueitf 

ago, in words that are often quoted, that 
one half of the world knows not how the 
other half lives. And the reason for this 
lack of mutual understanding is a differ- 
ence of language. 

In former days it was considered a 
large part of education to know many lan- 
guages. The scholar was — and to a large 
extent still is — the person who is versed 
in various tongues. He is the man who 
can speak with strangers from a foreign 
country; who can read Homer or the 
Bible in the original ; who can translate 
the thoughts of Vergil, or understand the 
words of Dante. And this is well : this 
is a standard which must be maintained. 
What we have forgotten, however, or 
have failed to realize in full is this — that 
it is a part of moral education and an in- 
dication of enlightenment to do the same 
thing in a broader and a higher sense. In 

9 



ConfujGfion of Congucjtf 

the broader and the higher spheres of 
human life and effort are many lan- 
guages : there is the language of the 
heart — the language of deep human 
needs ; there are the differing languages 
that voice differing ideals, differing hopes, 
desires, and ambitions ; and unless we can 
enter into, speak, translate, and under- 
stand such tongues as these, we stamp 
ourselves as humanly provincial and our 
education is most seriously defective. We 
do not live our lives as they might be 
lived and as they should be lived until we 
learn, at least in part, to understand each 
other, to interpret one another* s needs, 
and to take each the other's point of view. 
More trouble in this world results from 
needless mz^understanding than from al- 
most any other cause. We become pro- 
voked with people, we engage in quar- 
rels with them, sometimes we treat them 

lo 



a Confus^ion of Conguc^ 

harshly, and often we permit ourselves 
to become permanently estranged — all 
this simply because we have not taken 
pains to learn just what they wish to say 
and are struggling to express. In the 
most literal sense we fail to understand 
them. 

And that being true in a negative 
sense, surely the very opposite is true 
when we have the gift of tongues and 
have learned the lesson of wide and deep 
and generous interpretation. The Good 
Samaritan — whom we call ^^good'' be- 
cause he had this precious gift — went 
promptly to the assistance of a wounded 
fellow-man : — and why ? It was because 
he understood the language of human 
suffering. He was able to translate the 
needs of another in distress into terms of 
his own experience and feeling. He was 
able to put himself in the other's place 

11 



a €onfuiBfion of €tmQUt^ 

— to feel as he felt, to see as he saw, and 
to suffer as he was suffering. In the deep- 
est sense these two understood and spoke 
a common tongue ; and it was the tongue 
of what was human. 

Just at present the world is suffering the 
calamity of the most awful war that has 
ever taken place in history. This War is 
inflicting greater loss, entailing greater 
suffering, causing greater agony, bringing 
with it greater and more complete con- 
fusion than the world, in its whole long 
history, has ever known before. And how 
has it come about? What has brought 
this fearful ruin to our race? We were 
building up, as it seemed, the tower of 
the proudest, and the truest, and the 
most complete civilization that the world 
had ever known. It was heaven-reaching 
in its high ideals and its dreams of a 
broad, complete humanity. But, sud- 

12 



r 



a Confujsfion of Congues? 

denly, like the work of old in the plains 
of ancient Babylon, the process of con- 
struction ceased ; a confusion of tongues 
ensued, and a ruined tower is the sad 
result which future generations of the 
race will look upon with awe and sad 
misgivings. 

There is little use, perhaps, in looking 
just at present on the causes. And yet 
we can hardly fail to see the most con- 
spicuous ; for history takes up at times 
the tale of legend. I was re-reading in 
part, the other day, one of the most 
remarkable little books that the War 
has called out in America. I mean The 
Pentecost of Calamity ^ by Owen Wister. 
My readers will remember how Mr. 
Wister emphasizes the way in which 
Germany had shut herself in from the 
world. " Even her Socialist-Democrats 
conformed to military principles and 

13 



a Confuitfion of €ongueitf 

teachings/' he says. " China built a stone 
wall, but Germany a wall of the mind/' 
For forty years she learned and repeated 
" Prussian incantations/' And "within her 
wall of moral isolation," thinking only of 
her own aspirations, speaking only of her 
own hopes, desires, ambitions, her sight 
became distorted and her sense of pro- 
portion quite lost. When, therefore, she 
struck her sudden blow, she was amazed 
to find that the world was against her, 
abhorrent of the things she did. This, 
then, was her Nemesis : she had misun- 
derstood the world, feeling all the while 
that she herself was misunderstood. It 
was a tragic instance of the danger that 
always lurks in centering your thoughts 
upon yourself and thinking only of your 
own hopes, desires, and needs. What is 
necessary for one's self, and for self-de- 
velopment, one comes to look upon as 

14 



^ Confusion of Congue^ 

right and proper and, indeed, the only 
justifiable need for all. One's own lan- 
guage is the only language and one's 
own culture the culture that the world 
most needs. 

In this respect, of course, as in many 
another, the nation is only the larger indi- 
vidual. Here, therefore, is a danger that all 
of us have to guard against and to learn, if 
possible, to counteract. The world inevit- 
ably divides itself into classes. Society is 
made up of different kinds of people, 
living under differing conditions and en- 
joying widely divergent degrees of oppor- 
tunity and privilege. There are cultured 
classes and ignorant classes; there are 
rich and poor; there are high and low; 
there are head- workers and hand-work- 
ers; there are capitalists and laborers; 
there are conservatives and radicals ; there 
are people of leisure and people of inces- 

15 



a ConfujSion of €msat0 

sant, grinding, and poorly requited toil. 
And, to whichever class we may happen 
to belong, it is right and wise, it is proper 
and much to be desired that we learn, so 
far as is possible, to put ourselves in other 
people's places and to understand their 
language and emotions. Society pro- 
gresses and builds securely, rearing its 
tower upon deep and firm foundations, 
only in proportion as people have one 
language and use a common speech of 
high and pure ideals. 

A year or two ago the head worker 
in a well-known social settlement was 
speaking with reference to the chief value 
of all such institutions. And he did not 
emphasize the advantages which the social 
settlement offers to the children of the 
poor and to the family of the immigrant. 
He did not dwell upon the good that is 
done in the clubs, nor upon the instruc- 

16 



31 Confujaeion of ^ongucja? 

tion and refinement that, directly or indi- 
rectly, are imparted by college graduates 
and others to those who are ignorant of 
the amenities of life. Not at all. But what 
he did enlarge upon and emphasize was 
this : that the social settlement is a place 
where the often widely divergent classes 
in our American society are interpreted 
to one another; where they learn to speak 
a common language and are made to 
understand, in part, each other's point of 
view. The teacher, he said, is often taught, 
while the learner comes to read life in a 
truer light. The rich and the poor, the 
privileged and the handicapped, come to 
see things, each from the other side of 
the wall that outward condition has built 
up between them. Thus the capitalist 
comes to learn something of what the 
socialist is driving at, and the socialist is 
awakened to the fact that wealth and 

17 



a Confusion of ^ongueief 

power are not always selfish, base, and 
overbearing. 

It is true that these lessons are never 
easy ones to learn. All of us tend to live 
within our own enclosures, speaking the 
language which conditions, customs, edu- 
cation, and tradition make famihar to us. 
We are colored, all of us, by our sur- 
roundings, shaped by our inheritances, 
influenced by our privileges or the lack 
of them; until, at length, it comes about 
that prejudice usurps the place of reason 
and wields a sovereign, though perhaps 
unconscious, sway. And prejudice, you 
know, is neither more nor less than just 
pre-judging things before one has heard 
the evidence or made an effort to arrive 
at facts. Moreover, for us Americans, 
these lessons, however difficult, have spe- 
cial importance. For if we are to build and 
to keep our nation as it should be built and 

18 



31 Confusion of €onguciS 

kept, if we would purify its politics, adjust 
its conflicting social interests, and encour- 
age public spirit, civic zeal, and social ser- 
vice, it behooves us, to these ends, to culti- 
vate a common speech and to learn to 
understand the language of hopes and 
dreams and interests that differ from our 
own. And how is this common speech to 
be acquired ? it may be asked. Well — in 
spite of all those differences which never 
wholly can be done away, do we not all 
know this : that there is a sphere in which, 
like those of old, we have one language 
and employ one speech? That sphere 
is the higher sphere where ideals reign 
and principles are upheld and standards 
are defended. Let us seek example of 
this truth. 

As I v^ite, the footfalls of the various 
great Preparedness Parades have hardly 
died away. The thought of those mov- 

19 



^ Confujeftott of €ongue^ 

ing columns is still before our minds and 
we needs must ask ourselves. What is it 
that they symbolize? What is the true 
significance of this movement for Pre- 
paredness, with all its great dimensions 
and its power of spectacular display? 
For what does it prepare the way? At 
present, I confess, it seems crude and 
noisy ; at present it has elements that 
waken doubt and make us feel that in 
more than one direction it may reach too 
far. But, in spite of this, the Prepared- 
ness propaganda appeals to me as con- 
taining the elements of great and liberal 
promise. For Preparedness is a means 
and not an end; it is a messenger that 
goes before the face of larger things and 
literally prepares the way for a dispensa- 
tion that has long been looked for in a 
country where, of late years, we have 
had too little of the patriotism which is 

20 



91 ConfujSion of CongucjS 

built upon service and imbued with the 
spirit of self-sacrifice. All too frequently, 
of late, people have come to our coun- 
try, and people have grown up in our 
country, not with the spirit of giving, 
but of getting ; not with the thought of 
what they could do for America, but of 
what America could do for them. Hence 
graft has grown; hence civic selfishness 
has grown ; hence careless indolence as 
regards the public weal has grown. 
Rights, not duties, have been empha- 
sized; selfish gain, not public service; 
the promotion of financial schemes rather 
than the promotion of our country's good. 
What I like about this movement for 
Preparedness is the emphasis it lays upon 
the need of a common service and a mu- 
tual understanding. 

These camps that are being organized, 
these multiple organizations that are be- 

21 



% ConfujBfion of €imqut$ 

ing formed, these groups of all kinds 
that are being drawn together, to work 
together, to march together, to serve to- 
gether, — they are all helping toward the 
acquisition of a common tongue for com- 
mon needs. They are all combining to 
prepare the way for a closer social unity 
and a finer understanding of Democracy. 
For they bring people of all kinds to- 
gether and thus do away with false dis- 
tinctions ; they remove all petty barriers 
and thus are able to fire great masses of 
the people with the sense of a common 
purpose and a common" obligation. 

And when we set ourselves to build 
on such foundations, — be our structure 
city, state, or nation, — then indeed we 
build toward heaven; then our diver- 
gences of speech become forgotten ; we 
understand each other and we help each 
other. And then a Higher Power com- 

22 



^ €onfu$^iott of Conguej^ 

ing down, neither confuses nor scatters 
us. But He sees the tower that is build- 
ing to be his own — a Temple of the 
Spirit ; and henceforth God and man are 
laborers together, speaking and under- 
standing the language of the Spirit. 



€|)aptei; CtDO 



THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 



THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 

If there is one thing emphasized more 
than any other in our Bible, that thing is 
Life. The Bible, indeed, is not so much 
a Book of Law as a Book of Life. It does 
not deal with maxims half so much as it 
deals with men. It is not concerned with 
codes half so much as it is with conduct. 
Man is the Bible's first interest ; and man 
as his life relates itself to God and to his 
fellow-men. 

Moreover, what is true of the Bible as 
a whole, is more particularly true of that 
portion of the Book which contains the 
teaching of the Master. The great word 
of Jesus, the word which He used more 
frequently and more earnestly than any 

27 



a ConfuiSion of €ongucisr 

other, was the one word Life. ^^ I/' He 
said of Himself, '^ I am the bread of Life." 
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the 
Life/' To the wondering woman who 
stood with Him at the well in Samaria 
He said, " Whoso drinketh of this water 
shall thirst again ; but the water that I 
shall give him shall be in him a well of 
water, springing up into eternal life/' 
Again He could say, " I am come that 
they might have life, and that they might 
have it more abundantly''; adding also, 
in another connection, ^' He that findeth 
his life shall lose it; and he that loseth 
his life shaU find it." All of this, of 
course, is most familiar. But what is 
somewhat less familiar is the thought 
that the reward of all right living, ac- 
cording to this same supremely spiritual 
Teacher, is still in terms of Life. " This 
do, and thou shalt have " -— not luxuries, 

28 



€^t Conbuct of Itife 

nor ease, nor wealth, nor honor, nor any 
outward earthly thing; but, "This do 
and thou shalt live.'' 

Now, in these days, when Death is 
playing a larger and more conspicuous 
part in the great drama of events than 
ever before in the history of the world ; 
when, accordingly, there is so much to 
perplex us, and disturb us, and depress 
us, I have a feeling that it may be well and 
wise and helpful to center our thoughts, 
so far as is possible, upon subjects which 
are connected with the conduct of life. 
And just because world-events have 
loomed so large, and the problems of 
national and international existence have 
become so gigantic and insistent and dis- 
turbing; just because we are forced to 
think, as never until now, of destiny and 
duty, of suffering, loss, and sorrow in 
the large, I feel that there is wisdom in 

29 



^ Confusion of €ongucjS 

getting back to the thought of things 
that are ever with us, and in seeking new 
light upon the ever-present problems of 
individual existence. For, no matter how 
disturbed the world may be, nor how 
dark the sky, nor how draped with clouds 
the far horizon, each one of us has still 
his little life to live, and all of us desire 
to live as well as possible. To that end 
we should strive to discover what it is 
that we must do if we would have the 
*^more abundant life'' of which the 
Master spoke. 

One of the most interesting men of a 
previous generation in New England was 
Emerson's friend and neighbor, Bronson 
Alcott. Some one has said that the chief 
benefit he conferred upon the world was 
in giving to it his talented and brilliant 
daughter. But Alcott, with all his eccen- 
tricities and vague endeavors for reform, 

30 



€f|c Contiurt of Eife 

saw clearly enough along certain lines — 
especially those of education. Upon one 
occasion, we are told, he went into a 
school at Concord. Being asked to say 
something to the children, he stood up, 
looked at them for a time, and then asked 
abruptly, " What do you come here for ? " 
The inevitable and familiar period of si- 
lence and embarrassment ensued. But 
the questioner persisted and, at last, one 
pupil, bolder than the rest, replied that 
they came to learn. "Yes,'' persisted 
the philosopher, " but to learn what ? '' 
Finally came the answer he desired: 
"To learn how to behave/' And is not 
this the thing we are all engaged in 
learning in the greater school of the 
world, with whatever days and weeks, 
with whatever months and years are 
granted to us ? We are not solving many 
problems; we are not dispelling many 

31 



31 Confujafiott of ConguciSf 

mysteries ; but, whether successfully or 
unsuccessfully, whether completely or 
only partially, under varying circum- 
stances, face to face with perplexities 
and privileges, with pleasures and sor- 
rows, opportunities and trials, we are all 
engaged in learning how to conduct our- 
selves — which is to say, how to behave. 

If I wished, therefore, I could stop 
right here and devote an entire essay to 
that single word. Behave. It would be 
rather more of a sermon than an essay. 
Indeed, one of the world's great sermons, 
contained in Dr. Martineau's precious 
volume. Endeavours after the Christian 
Life, bears the title Havings Doings Be- 
ing. It is a sermon, in the highest sense, 
upon Behavior. 

Let us split apart that word he-have. 
It is plainly seen to be compounded of 
two of the commonest, yet most signifi- 

32 



€l|e Conliuct of Slife 

cant, words in the English language. 
Taken in conjunction with each other, 
these words involve some of the most 
persistent difficulties that exist for us in 
this life. To he and to have : — to he 
simple, let us say, while we have wealth 
and all that wealth lays down at our 
feet; to he patient and cheerful, while 
we have troubles, disappointments, and 
trials ; these are tasks which forever pre- 
sent themselves to the individual life; 
while, just at present, we are called upon 
as a nation to he trustful and believing, 
while we have for outlook the evil of the 
world, rolled up until the entire sky of 
life is dark. 

Confronted by problems such as these, 
all of us need and desire information. 
And I have often had the feeling that it 
would be most convenient and satisfac- 
tory if only there were in life some such 

33 



^ Confusion of Conguejsf 

bureau or department as we find in any 
modern railway station of size or impor- 
tance. Life is a journey. It has destina- 
tions that we wish to reach. And some- 
times — very often, indeed — we are 
puzzled as to the best, the safest, and 
the quickest line by which to travel. 
Under such circumstances, in a railway 
station, we consult an office which is set 
apart for "Information." He we find 
some one whose function is to help and 
guide all travelers. We ask our ques- 
tions and they are answered for us — 
answered with authority by an official 
whose business it is to know. That set- 
tles the matter; and if, afterwards, mis- 
takes are made, the fault is with ourselves. 
Sometimes, however, our puzzles are 
of a deeper and a darker kind, and not 
thus easily disposed of. They involve 
the mazes and the intricacies of our very 

34 



€f)e Conliurt of %i(c 

inmost natures and desires. And when 
we find ourselves entangled in a net- 
work of such character, it has been sug- 
gested 1 that a method not unlike the 
one employed at Hampton Court might 
prove of value. In the park of that pic- 
turesque old Palace there is a famous 
maze which affords perennial interest 
and delight for visitors. A labyrinth of 
winding walks has been arranged be- 
tween high hedges. It is easy enough to 
enter this labyrinth, but most difficult, 
once in, to find a way that brings one 
out. It is impossible to see any point of 
egress, or to discover whither the intri- 
cate paths are reaching. At Hampton 
Court, therefore, a man has been sta- 
tioned "on a little platform, just outside 
the maze and just above it." And when 
one has become hopelessly involved, and 

^ Stephen Paget, The New Parent* s Assistant^ p. 6. 

35 



a Confujeiott of Conguejf 

is tired of taking useless turns, and of 
wandering round and round, appeal is 
made to this man upon the platform. 
Following his directions one easily finds 
the way and is soon — sometimes very 
suddenly — released. No one thinks of 
doubting or of contradicting the director, 
" for he is outside and above the maze,'' 
and sees where no other can. 

In similar fashion, involved in the maze 
of life, we may all of us turn to those 
great teachers and wise guides whose 
range of vision is so much wider and 
more lofty than our own. In the pres- 
ent connection, therefore, let us turn to 
the wisest guide and supremest teacher 
of them all. Let us consider what he had 
to say. "This do,'' was his word to the 
lawyer who questioned as to the right 
conduct of life — " This do, and thou 
shalt live." And the first rule he gave, 

36 



€f)c Conliuct of %i(e 

and the great rule, was the simple one 
of kindness. Would you live well? Be 
kind. Would you live rightly and com- 
pletely? Be considerate and helpful. 
This was his word to those about him 
— the word which, above all others, has 
come down across the centuries. And I 
wonder, for my own part, whether, as 
a matter of very actual and evident fact, 
there is anything that counts for more 
in life, the memory of which lasts longer 
and more blessedly, than just that simple 
quality of heart. Courage is a strong 
quality; perseverance is a useful quality; 
integrity is fundamental and we cannot do 
without it ; but kindness has the beauty of 
inherent usefulness, together with the 
gentleness that is born of strength. 

" Go back,'' says a writer i whose words 
I was reading but the other day, "Go 

^ George A. Gordon, Through Man to God^ p. 199. 

37 



a Confujefion of Conguesf 

back into the fair morning of your life ; 
recall the time when the world was new, 
when everything came to you in the 
mystery of fresh experience; and ask 
the question — Who were they that in- 
terested and delighted you most in that 
golden age?'' And then: "Personally/' 
he adds, "I have done that a hundred 
times ; I have gone back into the morning 
of life, and looked again upon the men and 
women who then compassed me about. 
There were men and women saintly, 
truly so: and I regret to say that I did 
not like the saints. There were the men 
of courage, and they were better. Then 
came the patriots . . . who filled my 
mind with inspiring tales. But, high above 
all the persons of that early period, are 
the kind people. I can see them at the 
far end of a long vista, with the light of 
God shining in their faces. There they 

38 



€f)e Contiurt of Eife 

remain in that silent world, images of 
beauty and humanity, wearing looks that 
then seemed, and that still seem, the 
best symbol of heaven : playmates, some 
of them, forever vanished and yet unfor- 
gettable; dear old mothers and grand- 
mothers, who were fascinating simply 
because of their unwearying kindness/' 

This testimony of another would be, I 
believe, the testimony likewise of nearly 
all of us. There is no influence so potent 
to guide and keep and bless us through 
the eager, stormy years of youth, in the 
busy toil and restless energy of middle 
man- or womanhood, and on " until the 
shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, 
and the busy world is hushed, and the 
fever of life is over, and our work is done ' '; 
there is nothing that abides so long, or 
stands out with such clearness, as the 
grace of kindness. 

39 



% ConfujSton of €on0ue^ 

And what is kindness ? — a word which, 
to my mind, is in many ways a greater 
word than love, and a more helpful word 
than sympathy. What is kindness in its 
deepest nature and its widening reaches, 
if not a simple sense of other people, and 
of all people, as belonging with ourselves 
to the same great kin, or kind. We are 
kind when we are human and recognize 
the humanity that is in others. Not all of 
us have that human sense in any marked 
degree of development to begin with; not 
all of us are naturally considerate and 
thoughtful. But all of us have the power, 
if we wish to use it, of developing the 
sense and quickening the impulses of 
which it is composed. And for our own 
good, as well as for the good of others, 
I can think of no one quality which counts 
for more, when well developed and rightly 
exercised. It counts toward the rightful 

40 



€I)e Conduct of Eife 

doing of our work; and it counts not 
less, but rather more, toward the build- 
ing of God's kingdom. I remember to 
have heard, not long ago, of a man who 
was looked upon as disqualified for a 
post of great importance, for the simple 
reason that he lacked this quality. The 
position in question involved the manage- 
ment of men and the employment of 
labor upon one of our New England rail- 
ways. And this man had ability, he had 
energy, he had resources. But, because 
he lacked the human sense and felt no 
kinship with the toilers of the world, he 
was judged — and rightly judged — to 
be unfitted for such post. He was the 
sort of man who talks of factory " hands,'" 
and looks at "labor'' in the mass, for- 
getful of the fact that behind the hands 
are hearts and consciences, and that the 
labor problem has to do with men and 

41 



^ Confusion of Congue^ 

women and with children who live to- 
gether and establish homes. 

Had there been more kindness in the 
world — a keener sense, that is, of the 
^mship of the peoples of all nations — 
there would be no war in Europe at the 
present time. Men fall apart and fight 
each other when they forget about the 
things which make them, and should 
keep them, one. 

In large ways, therefore, as in little 
ones, this quality should be looked on as 
supreme in considering the rightful con- 
duct of our lives. It is, indeed, a " Golden 
Rule'' — always to be thought of and 
safely to be acted on: "This do and thou 
shalt live.'* 

It is significant, I think, that, if we 
look at the life and character of one of 
the greatest among modern men, we 
shall find this the trait that was con- 

42 



€f)e Contiuct of %ift 

spicuous above all others in his lifetime 
and that is recalled most frequently by 
all who reflect upon his character and 
career. The greatness of Abraham Lin- 
coln was in large part due to the great- 
ness of his heart. It will evermore re- 
main among the anomalies of history, as 
also a tragedy of human destiny, that 
one of the fiercest and most bloody wars 
which the world has ever known was 
conducted by one of the tenderest and 
most humane men that ever lived. No 
section of the country could secede from 
him or forfeit finally the right to his 
forgiveness and forbearance. No State 
could successfully rebel against his ear- 
nest and untiring wish to heal the breach 
that so unfortunately had been made. 
Through the long and fearful period of 
struggle, when hatred of the fiercest sort 
had been engendered, he held that all 

43 



^ Confujefion of ^onguciS 

the people had a rightful claim upon his 
sympathies, and that wayward citizens, 
like erring children, should be lured 
and welcomed back into the fold. All 
sorrows were his sorrows: all burdens, 
whether at the North or South, seemed 
his to bear. Though hated and harassed, 
though tried and tempted beyond meas- 
ure, — how significant it is that not one 
word of malice or of rancor, not a phrase 
which, after the cessation of hostilities, 
might return to embitter the defeated 
combatants or to be resented by their 
descendants, could be remembered of 
him. The thing that is remembered, and 
that will never be forgotten, is the im- 
mortal sentence that he wrote and that 
gives a guiding principle for the conduct 
of his life : " With malice toward none, 
with charity for all ; with firmness in the 
right as God gives us to see the right, 

44 



€l)c Conbuct of %ift 

let us strive on to finish the work we are 
in ; to bind up this Nation's wounds ; to 
do all which may achieve and cherish a 
just and lasting peace/' 

" With malice toward none, with char- 
ity for all " — I can think of no better 
rule than that for the rightful conduct 
of life, whether it be the life of an indi- 
vidual or of a nation. It is the rule of 
simple kindness. When we are per- 
plexed and weary, when we are injured 
or offended, when we are angry, envious, 
or distrustful, when we are lost in the 
maze of life and seek for guidance, let 
us recall that rule as given by one who 
stood outside of life, and above it, in the 
exaltation of his soul. 

But there was a second thing that the 
lawyer in old Jerusalem was reminded 
of as necessary if he really wished to 

45 



31 Confusion of €ongue^ 

live. It stood Jirst in the ancient Book 
of the Law. Men spoke of it then — and 
it still is spoken of — as "Loving God.'' 
But, for my ovm part, I prefer to think 
of it, at least in this connection, as Rev- 
erence. And what I wish to say, with 
neither argument nor illustration, is sim- 
ply this : if kindness is the first thing 
necessary for the rightful conduct of life, 
then reverence is easily the second. Be- 
ware of the man — beware especially of 
the woman — who reverences nothing; 
to whom life offers nothing by which the 
knee instinctively is bent, the soul suf- 
fused with awe, and the mind transfig- 
ured with the sense of wonder. 

Andrew Jackson, we are told, uncouth 
and ill-mannered though he was, once 
remarked to his friend, Francis Blair, that 
Aaron Burr had come "within one trait 
of the most exalted greatness. *What 

46 



€t^t Contmtt of Slife 

was that?' asked Mr. Blair. * Rever- 
ence, sir, reverence,' replied the Gen- 
eral solemnly. * I don't care how smart, 
or how highly educated, or how widely 
experienced a man may be in this world's 
affairs ; unless he reverences something, 
and believes in something beyond his 
own self, he will fall short somewhere. 
That was the trouble with Burr. I saw 
it when I first met him in 1796. I was 
a raw backwoodsman, but I never could 
get over that one impression that he was 
irreverent. I remember reading away 
back yonder how he said, when he read 
Hamilton's farewell letter, that it sounded 
like the confession of a penitent monk. I 
thought then, Blair, that if I had killed 
a man as he killed Hamilton, I would 
have left that for some one else to say. 
Yes : a man must revere something ; or, 
no matter how smart or brave he is, he 

47 



9L ConfUiSion of Congue^ 

will die as Burr died in New York the 
other day, friendless and alone.' '' 

It is true that, without this element of 
which General Jackson spoke so under- 
standingly, our lives lack the human and 
escape the holy. We may not have deep 
beliefs or firm convictions to guide us on 
our journey ; but what man is he who 
does not recognize somewhere a Power 
Higher than himself? In this world, with 
its immeasurable distances and its mighty 
depths ; with its laws that make for beauty, 
and its lines that go out through all the 
earth; where the heavens declare the 
glory of God and human beings find 
nothing that comforts and contents them 
like the good, we needs must acknowl- 
edge something that commands our 
reverence and worship. And by such 
acknowledgment we all are lifted up. 
Indeed, it may be said that he alone 

48 



€l)e Conliuct of %ift 

conducts his life aright who feels that 
somehow, and in ways beyond his knowl- 
edge, he is led and guided from on high. 
For we know in part, and we only 
prophesy in part ; and, until the perfect 
is attained, it is just for us to go upon 
our way with reverence for what is holy, 
and devotion to the law of right. 



Cfjapter €l^rce 



A MOTTO 



A MOTTO 



In the twelfth century of our era 
there lived in France a certain scholar 
— Alain de Lille — otherwise known 
as Alarms ah Insulis. He was a monk 
of the Cistercian order and his learning 
was such that he came to be known 
throughout medieval Europe as the 
Universal Doctor. As a monk he had 
given his heart to God. As a scholar he 
had given his mind to learning. And, 
doubtless as expressing the essence and 
deep motive of his long career, he for- 
mulated this motto : ** Live as if you 
were to die to-morrow : Learn as if you 
were to live forever.*' 

If we study this motto we shall find 

53 



9t Confusion of Conguesf 

that it covers those two great realms or 
departments of human existence which 
forever stand related to and bear inces- 
santly upon each other. At times the 
first appears supreme ; and then the 
second rises up for recognition. Now one 
is given emphasis, and now the other. 
But they never can be separated; for 
the two belong together and together 
form the sum and substance of all being. 
Within these two complementary spheres 
are included life and learning ; virtue and 
knowledge; action and impulse; duty 
and dream ; conduct and creed ; practice 
and theory; behavior and belief; char- 
acter and conviction. And these oppo- 
sites, in each case, form one whole. 
They never can be looked upon as inde- 
pendent of each other. For life should 
be enriched as far as possible by learn- 
ing ; duty depends upon the dream that 

54 



31 a^otto 

lies behind it ; creed is impotent divorced 
from conduct; while theory waits for 
practice to make it good and beautiful 
and true. What that mediaeval monk 
whose mind was filled with learning 
says to us is this: that in the first of 
life's departments we should look at 
what is near ; in the second we should 
fling our gaze afar; that in living we 
should live from day to day; while in 
learning we should take long views of 
things and fix our gaze upon that which 
lies at the end of the vista. The here of 
duty, and the there of glowing visions 
and ideals : the now of conduct, and the 
long, unmeasured, and uncounted years 
for progress and development — these are 
his themes. Let us give some thought to 
these themes and endeavor to relate them 
to the sphere of everyday life and conduct. 
We will begin with the first injunc- 

56 



^ ConfUiSion of €ongue3S 

tion: ^*Live as if you were to die to- 
morrow/' Now there are those, I know, 
who start back in revolt from such a 
precept. Why should we live, they say, 
forever conscious of the sad, unwelcome 
fact that life must have an end ; that ex- 
istence is as fleeting as the shadow ; that 
we are here to-day, and to-morrow the 
places that we occupied are vacant. This 
is the old, melancholy, and much mis- 
taken attitude toward things. It should 
be outgrown : it has been outgrovm. It 
belongs to ignorant and superstitious 
times, when death was feared and was 
carefully prepared for because of the 
punishment that might await men in the 
great hereafter. It recalls the ominous 
and warning words of old: ^*In the 
midst of life we are in death : What is 
your life : it is even as a vapour that 
appeareth for a little time and vanisheth 

56 



away." We hear again the sharp cry of 
the Great Apostle : " Brethren, the time 
is short : now is our salvation nearer 
than when we first believed/' Yes ; and 
it may be that the suggestion carries us 
still further and we find ourselves in 
contemplation of those mediaeval pic- 
tures, sometimes called the Dance of 
Death, in which the figure of Death is 
represented meeting the merchant as he 
counts his gold ; lying in wait for the 
mechanic as he goes out to his work; 
smiting the musician as he gayly plays 
at some great feast 

No — No — we have said. Let not 
our lives be shadowed thus, as the lives 
of men were darkened in the days of old. 
^* Live as if you were to die to-morrow'': 
— that is the motto of a grim old monk 
who believed that sadness was a duty, 
and the world an evil, and that men 

57 



31 ConfUiBfton of Conguc^ 

should give their thoughts, not to the 
here and now, but to the vast hereafter. 
Consequently, in our reaction, v^e have 
gone to the very opposite extreme. 
There are those v^ho live as if they 
were to live forever in this world ; who 
banish not alone all talk, but, so far as 
possible, all thought of death; who lay 
no plans, give no directions, make no 
wills. Such as these, when they are 
gone, leave their affairs in great con- 
fusion. They too are victims, in an- 
other way, of superstition. 

But between these two extremes, which 
are neither of them to be commended, it 
appears to me that we can find a large 
and middle ground which all of us should 
occupy. The facts of life can never, any 
of them, wisely be avoided. The fact of 
death should be accepted by us all and 
used for the right and wise development 

58 



of life. It is not something to be feared, 
but it is something to be faced. And when 
we face it as a simple fact it has many a 
lesson it can teach us, many an impulse 
it can give toward what is right and true, 
unselfish, pure, and holy. 

Live as though the span of life extended 
for us only through a brief to-morrow — 
suppose that any of us did that ; suppose 
that we made a principle of doing it ; what 
probable effect would it have upon our 
actions ? Would it make us sad, indiffer- 
ent, and inactive? Would it impel us to 
leave our tasks undone, our efforts in- 
complete, our duties hopelessly neglected ? 
Would it persuade us that nothing after 
all was much worth while; that it was 
just as well to let things take their course ? 
I do not think so. Quite the contrary. It 
seems to me that such a thought would 
lend a form of deep intensity to life. It 

59 



31 Confujefion of €ongue^ 

would mean the shaking-off of miserable 
lethargy; the counting of the precious 
golden moments as they fly; the doing 
promptly of our duties as one by one they 
present themselves ; and the glad accept- 
ance of such opportunities for light and 
joy and service as are offered us. Phil- 
lips Brooks once said: ^*It is when the 
brook begins to hear the mighty river 
calling to it, and knows that its time is 
short, that it begins to hurry over the 
rocks and toss the foam in air and make 
straight for the valley. Life that never 
thinks of its end lives in the present and 
loses the flow and movement of responsi- 
bility. It is not so much that the short-- 
ness of life makes us prepare for death, 
as it is that it spreads the feeling of privi- 
lege through life and makes each mo- 
ment prepare for the next — makes life 
prepare for life." 

60 



I went along the street only yesterday 
with a man whose years have almost 
reached a full fourscore. It was bleak 
and wet and disagreeable, and I asked 
him if he were not tired of the winter. 
"Tired of the winter? Indeed, no/' he 
answered blithely; "the more of it the 
better. Whether summer or winter, every 
day of life that is granted me I now count 
as a happiness and a privilege.'' That 
was the viewpoint of one who knew that 
the time was short. 

But it seems to me that the thought 
of which we are speaking does more than 
that. It not merely adds a kind of energy 
and intensity to life: it leads us like- 
wise to set the house of life in order. And 
I do not speak solely in regard to out- 
ward and financial things although, of 
course, that also would be true. In the 
old days of precise and methodical busi- 

61 



^ ConfuiBfxon of €onguesf 

ness men and methods, it used to be a , 
kind of religious ideal for the merchant 
to balance his books carefully every night 
and to leave his office as though he never 
might return. Everything was ordered : 
everything prepared. It is, however, a 
different kind of order that I am thinking 
of at present — a different and a higher 
kind. I am thinking of the quarrels that 
would be ended, of the misunderstand- 
ings that would be done away, of the jeal- 
ousies that would seem so poor a bequest 
to leave behind and that all of us would 
banish if we really knew that the time 
we had was short. Most of us mean, 
sometime, to forgive an actual or imagi- 
nary injury or insult; we mean, some- 
time, to reach out a friendly hand or to 
do a generous deed to some one whom 
we have not liked or with whom we have 
not been on cordial terms. And how 

62 



quickly we would do it; how gladly we 
would welcome the opportunity to do it ; 
how eagerly we would speak the help- 
ful, friendly word, if we felt or knew that 
either he or she or we would soon have 
done forever with the things of earth. 
When we keep the precept of that old 
Cistercian monk in mind we do not dawdle 
with amiable plans, or play with good in- 
tentions; but we act — and act at once 
— before, perchance, it is too late. 

Horace Mann, whom we honor as a 
prophet of the higher education, once re- 
marked, with his usual insight and dis- 
cernment, that we are told nothing in 
the Bible about the resolutions of the 
Apostles, or about the plans and dreams 
of the Apostles : we are told only about 
the Acts of the Apostles. And acts are 
things to which all of us would devote 
more ardent energies if, like the Apostles, 

63 



a Confusion of ConguejS 

we should come to be persuaded that 
the time is short. There is a sense, 
therefore, in which we might do well if 
we were to look upon ourselves as just 
day laborers — not working by the piece 
and not under any contract for a long 
term of years ; but just given a work to 
do from day to day, and with strength 
sufficient to undertake and complete it. 

" Live as if you were to die to-morrow : 
Learn as if you were to live forever." 
What shall we say with reference to the 
second — the larger, higher, and more 
welcome portion of the precept — *^ Learn 
as if you were to live forever '' ? As we 
hold in mind this injunction and relate 
to it all the richness and the wealth and 
the glow of human hopes and dreams, 
ambitions and ideals, it seems to lend to 
life a certain dignity and majesty and 
might. If there are ways in which we 

64 



ought to live but from day to day, tak- 
ing short views of things, just as surely 
there are many other ways in which we 
ought to place our confidence and trust 
in things that reach through time and to 
eternity. There are many ways of life 
and many works of life that never would 
be entered on and calmly, bravely, and 
hopefully undertaken, except it were 
possible for mind and soul to reach out 
and to dare look on through the years, 
taking no thought for the immediate, 
seeing no end to effort. It is thus that 
the young man enters on his course of 
preparation for some great profession; 
it is thus that the student sets himself 
to the task of long investigation; it is 
thus that the scholar outlines in his 
early or, it may be, in his later years, 
some task that he will do. He does not 
say, " It may be that I shall not live to 

65 



^ €onfu$^ton of Congueia: 

engage in practice ; it may be that my 
research never will result in any discov« 
ery ; it may be that my book never will 
be completed ; therefore, why should I 
delve and study and perfect myself with 
care ? It is not worth while, I will live 
only for to-day. I will learn only what 
has immediate and near-by value." No; 
he does not say or think such things as 
these. He takes no foolish thought for 
such a paltry thing as time. But the 
work is there, the strength is here; the 
vision is beyond, the purpose is within ; 
the ideal beckons, and resolution rises 
up from silent depths of which he hardly 
knows the meaning. Solemnly, uncon- 
sciously, he gives himself to that which 
has a value he knows not how to meas- 
ure, and possibilities of which he cannot 
see the end. 

It is thus that all great work is done. 

66 



It is thus that all great souls have always 
taken up and carried on the noblest tasks 
of life. The thought of the Eternal, the 
instinct of the Eternal, the purpose of 
the Eternal — although we hardly know 
it at the time — forever enter into feeble, 
fleeting, and inconstant human beings, 
and they give themselves with power 
and persistency to what is noble and 
sublime. In more ways than we know 
about or understand, we show ourselves 
and prove ourselves the children of a 
Higher Power and a Power that is time- 
less. In our work as well as in our wor- 
ship, we say incessantly to somewhat 
that is other than ourselves, " What is 
thine is ours also, if we are thine : and 
life is eternal, and love is immortal, and 
death is only an horizon, and an hori- 
zon is nothing save the limit of our see- 
ing'' ; and saying, we know that we can 

67 



31 Confusfion of €mQUt^ 

see and measure but a very little of the 
wonders and the possibilities by which 
we are surrounded. The human being 
is an onward-moving and an upward- 
reaching creature. His hopes are bound- 
less, his dreams are unconfined; and he 
lives his life completely only when he 
lives for things which have a value in 
themselves, and of which he knows him- 
self to form but a tiny and a temporary 
part. 

Does it ever occur to us, I wonder, to 
consider how it is that victory was al- 
ways represented by the ancients ; why 
it was that she was always shaped and 
pictured as we see her in the famous 
statues ? The old Greeks did not hew 
the marble from their hills to depict for 
men a seated victory, with folded wings, 
and in the posture of repose. They did 
not make her wear the features of con- 

68 



tentment, nor permit her to hold the 
attitude of one who has attained. No; 
she is represented always as a figure 
instinct with energy, with wings out- 
spread, and garments flowing. She moves 
in triumph forward, on feet that tread 
the air. That is the famous Winged 
Victory of the Louvre and likewise the 
figure that men go to old Olympia to 
admire. Victory is always going for- 
ward, always moving on toward things 
which lie beyond. It is not a question of 
to-day, nor yet to-morrow, — but of far 
ideals. And v^gs are things to fly with, 
by which we are borne upward toward 
the heights. 

Thus it is that the only lasting vic- 
tories of life are won. They come to 
those who reach out, and who seek the 
things that lie beyond. " Learn as if you 
were to live forever.'' Yes; learn and 

69 



a. ConfUiBfion of Congue^ 

live the things that have eternal value 
— that are the same yesterday, to-day, 
and to-morrow. Learn goodness, learn 
mercy, learn justice, learn sympathy, 
learn reverence, learn truth : and learn 
them not for any value that they have 
to-day, nor for any profit they may 
yield in peace and happiness and service. 
But learn them and lay hold upon them 
because, whether living or dying, whether 
failing or succeeding, whether in this 
world or the next world, whether to- 
day or through the long to-morrow, they 
have enduring and eternal value. 



€fiaptec f out 



THE LITTLE BOOK 



THE LITTLE BOOK 



In the Book of Revelation there is an 
account of a colossal angel. His figure 
filled the heaven and for support he 
needed both the earth and sea. The vi- 
sionary Bible writer, in describing what 
he saw, declared that this mighty figure 
wore the rainbow for a crown, while his 
face was like the sun. When he came 
down from the sky and sought a place 
on which to stand, we are told he set his 
right foot on the sea and his left foot on 
the land. And he cried with a great voice, 
as a lion when it roareth. 

For all his enormous size, however, 
the really significant thing about this 
mighty angel of the Revelation was the 

73 



a Confusion of €on0ueiBf 

object which he held within his hand. 
That object was a little book. More than 
once we are told that the book was little 
— so small, indeed, that the Prophet was 
directed to take and eat it. And yet, in 
that book was everything written : for it 
was the book of the prophecy of life. 

Mankind has ever had a peculiar fond- 
ness for things that are "big.'* The 
Seven JVonders of the fVorld included the 
Pyramids of Egypt and the Colossus 
of Rhodes. They ranged from the Hang- 
ing Gardens of Babylon to the Great 
Wall of China. With one or two excep- 
tions, however, these "wonders'* — 
which were so different — had a single 
element in common: and that element 
was vastness. They were like the angel 
in the Book of Revelation, who stood 
with one foot on the land and the other 
on the sea. 

74 



€|>e %ittlt 25ooft 

In more than one respect we all are 
children of the ancients; and, among 
other things, we have inherited their 
love for bigness. Particularly is this true 
of us Americans. There is nothing of 
which we boast more frequently than 
concerning the size of the continent 
which we possess. We rejoice in our 
teeming cities, and our sweeping prairies, 
and our mighty rivers. The objects of our 
most genuine interest, it is often said, are 
the objects which are big — like Niagara, 
and the Grand Canyon, and the Big Trees 
of California, and the lofty peaks of the 
Rocky Mountains. As a people we coined 
the phrase *^ Big Business,'* and one phase 
of *' Big Business '' is the " Giant Trust.'* 
And there is no period of our history of 
which this is more truly typical than the 
moment in which we now live. For there 
is nothing of which we hear so much or 

75 



31 Confusion of Congue^S 

that inspires such excessive confidence as 
"Big Guns " and " Super-Dreadnaughts/' 
While all of this is true, however, it is 
only half the truth. While, apparently, 
we put our trust in bigness, the real fact 
is that our age has emphasized, as no 
other age has ever done, the importance 
of little things and the significance of 
w^hat is infinitely small. We see vs^ith the 
eyes of the ancient Prophet an enormous 
angel which fills the sky ; but we see, 
also, that within his hand the angel bears 
a little book. The biggest discovery of 
recent times has been the discovery of 
bacteria — forms of life so tiny that only 
the most powerful microscope reveals 
them. We have dug a huge canal which 
unites two oceans ; but we were able to 
do the work successfully only after we 
had discovered the poison-bearing power 
of a tiny insect — the mosquito. And 

76 



€l^e Hittle 25oofe 

finally, it remained for an American to 
receive the other day a prize of forty 
thousand dollars for learning how to 
weigh something. That something was 
not mountains, nor continents, nor plan- 
ets: Professor Richards received the 
Nobel prize in chemistry for success in 
weighing atoms. 

When we reflect upon things like 
these we begin to understand what a 
well-known English author, a prophet 
of the paradoxical, had in mind when he 
wrote, not long ago, a book he called 
Tremendous Tnfles. But it needs no Gil- 
bert Chesterton to remind us that 

** The trifles of our daily lives, 
The common things scarce worth recall, 
Whereof no visible trace remains ; — 
These are the mainspring after all/' 

To some these trifles may seem rela- 
tively of no importance. Undoubtedly 

77 



a Confujfion of €m^m^ 

they constitute the lesser questions of the 
present day. In this boundless world, 
however, with its sweeping planets and its 
age-long currents, its vast foam eddies 
and its tides that ebb and flow through 
time and to eternity, there is nothing of 
which it can be safely said that "it does 
not matter much," or that "after all, it 
makes no difference/' 

And this is true whether in the world 
of natural forces or of forces that shape 
character; whether in nature or in life. 
"There is no difference," says a modem 
philosopher, writing on the everlasting 
problems of the world and God and Duty, 
" there is no difference worth discussing 
which does not make a difference in con- 
duct" — which is to say, a difference in 
character, in life itself. The secret sin, 
if it be not corrected and crushed out, 
becomes in time the besetting sin which 

78 



€fyt %ittle 25oo& 

cuts into the bright career and brings it 
to destruction. And the same law works 
in nature, "*Let that worm alone, and 
it will kill your tree/ was said to the 
gardener in the park of a great estate in 
England. And true enough ; the gardener 
paid no attention to the tiny borer, and 
next year's yellow leaves showed the 
slow assassination of the tree.'' 

Perhaps the greatest natural marvel of 
our continent, and it may be of the world, 
is the Grand Canyon of Arizona. And the 
difference between this yav^ing chasm, 
awakening awe with its tremendous meas- 
urements, thrilling the sensibilities with 
the rainbow beauty of its colorings, — the 
difference between the giant cliffs and the 
awful depths, and the dry and dreary, 
sun-baked level plain surrounding, is a 
difference due to the cumulative action of 
little drops of water. The brightly col- 

79 



21 Confujfion of €mqut^ 

ored angel which here rears its head into 
the clouds has in its hand a little book: 
and in that book is written the long and 
secret history of the thing men travel 
miles to see. 

But the world is full of little books. 
Beelzebub is the well-known Father of 
Lies. To call him that, however, is to 
leave off a single letter from what, more 
properly, should be his title. Beelzebub 
— so etymology informs us — was the 
god of little things. He was the Lord of 
Flies. That is what the word literally 
means. And it has remained for modern 
science to disclose the dangers of the 
common house-fly. 

Moreover, in the regulation of our daily 
lives — as all of us know to our chagrin 
— the things that most often get upon 
our nerves and exasperate us into loss 
of self-control are the biting, teasing, 

80 



€|je %ittle 2&oofe 

buzzing little cares and troubles that seem 
continually to be coming back and hav- 
ing to be brushed away. " Who has not 
observed/* says a writer, ^< how wonder- 
fully the mere insect cares which are 
ever on the wing in the noonday heat of 
life, have power to sting and to annoy 
even giant minds around which they sport, 
and to provoke them into most unseemly 
war? The finest sense, the profoundest 
knowledge, the most unquestionable taste, 
often prove an unequal match for insigni- 
ficant irritations ; and a man whose philos- 
ophy subdues nature, and whose force of 
thought and purpose gives him ascend- 
ancy over men, may possess in his ovm 
temper an unvanquished enemy at home/' 



i6 



We rise to meet a heavy blow ; 
Our souls a sudden bravery fills ; 
But we endure not always so 
The drop by drop of little ills, 
81 



31 ConfujSion of Consue^ar 

**The heart which boldly faces death 
Upon the battle-field, and dares 
Cannon and bayonet, faints beneath 
The needle points of frets and cares/' 

There is a kind of compensation, how- 
ever, in the fact that what is true of the 
things that irritate and sting us, is just 
as true of the things that contribute to 
our pleasure and promote our happiness. 
Much of the joy and cheer and buoyant 
optimism of this world is due to very 
trivial and unimportant happenings and 
causes. Many of the happiest and most 
contented persons whom we know are 
they who can take the ordinary occur- 
rences of daily life and find in them 
deep fountains of perpetual joy and satis- 
faction. It is the laughter and the love 
of little children, the hand-grasp of a 
friend, the word or act of affection or 
regard, the burst of sunlight on a radiant 

82 



morning after the storm has passed — it 
is things Hke these that go to make up 
the great sum of human hope and cheer. 
" Pound St. Paul's Cathedral into atoms/' 
said wise old Dr. Johnson in the hearing 
of the assiduous Boswell, " and consider 
any single atom, and it is, to be sure, 
good for nothing : but put those atoms 
together and you have St. Paul's Cathe- 
dral. Even so," continued the Sage, ^*it 
is with human felicity, which is made up 
of many ingredients, each of which may 
be shown to be very insignificant." 

*^ Oh, the little more, and how much it is : 
And the little less, and what worlds away.'* 

Little things indeed ! When accurate 
measurements are made, and the whole 
to which each stands related is con- 
sidered, we learn that there are no little 
things. It is out of the little book of 
some simple, unconsidered word or act 

83 



^ Confujafion of CongueiS 

that we often read with accuracy, and 
with more or less completeness, the 
truth of a person's entire character. The 
fragment is a portion of the whole and 
the part informs us of the thing from 
which it came to be detached. The 
other day some shells fell suddenly and 
burst, doing not a little damage, in the 
quiet streets of Dunkirk, on the English 
Channel. The townsfolk were taken ut- 
terly by surprise. Whence came the 
shells ? The enemy was miles away. 
Some surmised that a submarine might 
have fired them. Others said that an 
aeroplane must have dropped them. 
But this was all guesswork. No one had 
explained the mystery. At length, how- 
ever, some little pieces of the shell were 
found and taken to a man of science. 
He examined them, carefully measur- 
ing the metal and the arc of the shat- 

84 



€|)c Eittlc 25oofe 

tered bits that had been put into his 
hands. And from his calculations it was 
learned that the shells must have been 
enormous, coming from a gun of huge 
caliber and at range of more than twenty 
miles. 

In similar fashion, people often tell us 
what they are by their little, uncon- 
sidered acts of kindness or of love. The 
deeds which they think of least, and 
often never meditate at all, constitute 
a very safe criterion for the measure- 
ment of their goodness. 

In our American calendar of heroes 
and martyrs, we call to mind, each year, 
the superlative services of Lincoln first, 
and then of Washington. With rever- 
ence we renew in ourselves the undy- 
ing recognition of their great and high 
examples, their characters and lives. 
What is it, however, that we love to 

85 



a Confusion of Congurjs 

linger on longest, and never tire of 
having reiterated to us in sermon, me- 
moir, or address ? It is not, I think, the 
great moments in those wonderful ca- 
reers. It is not the silent, solemn men 
preparing proclamations, or face to face 
v^ith mighty problems in the nation's 
destiny and life. These are the great 
moments as commonly conceived and, 
of course, these things can never be 
forgotten. They constitute history and 
have been v^ritten for all time. But the 
things we never tire of, the things we 
treasure in significant detail, are the 
simple, homely, human acts which, in 
their own time, brought these men so 
near the hearts of their countrymen, 
and which make of their memories vital, 
stirring motives in our lives to-day. This 
is more particularly true, perhaps, of the 
great Lincoln with his deep and tender 

86 



€f|e %ittle 25oofe 

nature. We see him comforting the heart 
of the mother who came to ask the par- 
don of her son, or sitting in the hospital 
at the bedside of some wounded boy. 
We hear him saying : " Do not ask me 
to approve these executions. There are 
too many widows already in this land.'* 
We recall his half-humorous remark 
when it was urged upon him that all 
deserters be shot : '* I do not see how 
shooting would make them any better.'' 
These are the ** perfect tributes '* to the 
goodness of a great man and the great- 
ness of a good man : only little things, 
but how significant. 

There are many persons who are ca- 
pable of great acts, and who pine for 
opportunities to do them, but who forget 
about the ordinary ways of showing hero- 
ism and displaying the capacities they have 
for generosity, self-sacrifice, and helpful- 

87 



31 €onfUiSion of Congue^ 

ness. When this War is over and we 
return to the normal and the peaceful, 
great as the relief will be, the reaction 
also will be great. We shall come back 
from reading about and hearing about 
innumerable deeds of conspicuous brav- 
ery and service, not to speak of patient 
suffering and endurance under conditions 
beyond our powers to conceive — we 
shall come back from these to the ordi- 
nary burdens, cares, and perplexities of 
daily life. And when this happens — 
thrice blessed as the time will be — it 
is bound to make the world appear, at 
first, uninteresting, flat, and tame. The 
one redeeming feature of this present 
crucifixion is the quiet, steadfast way in 
which great deeds are done, great risks 
encountered, and great suffering borne. 
It brings to us all a deeper and a truer 
understanding of the strength there is 

88 



€^e %ittlt 23ooft 

in human nature, and of the extent of 
unused human energies. We have come 
to think it wholly natural that our boys 
should cross the ocean to drive French 
ambulances or to volunteer for service 
in the trenches : that women should 
enlist as nurses, whether to tend the 
wounded or to fight the foe of typhus. 
All this is tingling in the air and, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, affecting our 
entire estimate of values. But it cannot 
last forever. A return will come in time 
to the quiet ways of peace. 

The present, therefore, is a good time 
in which to reflect upon the fact that 
the everyday routine of life supplies us 
all with abundant opportunities for brav- 
ery and heroism, not to speak of ways 
and means for showing courage, offer- 
ing help, and doing deeds of real devo- 
tion. The truest heroes, the most useful 

89 



^ ConfuiBfion of Ztmgm^ 

fighters, and the most faithful workers 
are often to be found in the very homes 
that adjoin our own and on the streets 
that day by day we walk. Here are 
women who make the best of burdens, 
cares, and losses, smiling through tears 
that blind. Here are men of grim and 
iron resolution, who keep their failures 
and their sorrows to themselves, deter- 
mined that their own crosses shall not 
bear upon the shoulders of any other. 
Here are men and women who give the 
world the best they have each day, in 
the trenches of stem duty and along 
the lines of earnest, faithful, honest, 
and effective service. What the world 
most needs, and will soon be crying out 
for once again, cannot be classed as sig- 
nal acts, nor stirring deeds, nor mem- 
orable lives ; but just .simple, ordinary 
acts and deeds and lives of goodness, 

90 



honor, justice, purity, and patience. It 
is these that will make our households 
purer, our cities cleaner, our civilization 
higher, more just, and more fraternal. 
Though the people living lives like these 
and doing deeds of only simple justice 
and integrity, " be not sought for in the 
council of the people," as the old Apoc- 
ryphal v^iter puts it, *^nor be exalted 
in the assembly ; though they sit not on 
the seat of the judge, nor understand 
the covenant of judgment; . • . yet, 
without these, shall not a city be inhab- 
ited, nor shall men sojourn, or walk up 
and down therein. For these maintain 
the fabric of the world, and in the handi- 
work of their craft is their prayer." 

And if, for a moment, we enter a 
higher sphere, we shall find that what 
has been said — together with much 
that cannot well be uttered — applies 

91 



a Confuitfion of Conguejf 

with no less force to the teachings and 
the inspirations of that phase of human 
experience which we know and speak of 
as Religion. We know — all of us know 
— the impressions of awe and reverence 
and wonder that are made upon us by 
the sublime, the stupendous, and the in- 
frequent in nature. We bend the knee 
when we come face to face with the un- 
familiar and the far. Our hearts "leap 
up '' when we ^'behold a rainbow in the 
sky.'* But we also know — or at least 
we ought to know — that the same deep 
feelings and the same high impulses may 
be kindled by the presence of the famil- 
iar and the near, if we but see and un- 
derstand these as they are. 

The gifted author of A JVindow in 
ThrumSy looking at the world from a 
little cottage in the Highlands of Scot- 
land, once said of a boisterous brother 

92 



€f)e %ittU 25ooft 

author who had roamed and written 
round the world, that he had yet to 
learn that " a man may come to know 
more of life, staying at home by his 
mother's knee, than by swaggering in 
bad company over three continents/' 
And we may surely say the same in re- 
gard to the fountains of our higher in- 
spiration and the knowledge that pertains 
to things of spiritual value. The little 
and the near have all the glory and the 
romance of the great and the distant, if 
we have but hearts to understand and 
wisdom to perceive. 

'' We lack but open eye and ear 
To find the Orient's marvels here ; 
The still, small voice in autumn's hush, 
Yon maple wood the burning bush.'' 

The greatest and most marvelous 
things in life are ever nearest to us. It 
is the deadening influence of custom that 

93 



a Confusion of ConguejS 

causes us to think that what is familiar 
is also commonplace. "Breath in our 
nostrils, light in our eyes, flowers at our 
feet/' generous instincts in our hearts, 
and duties that our hands are restless 
till they lay firm hold upon — these, as 
Bishop Thorold says, are little things 
that loom up large when we have found 
a correct perspective. 

Could we pass but a single day with 
the Master, or with one who had the 
Master's spirit, the little world of every- 
day events around us would take on sud- 
denly a high and sacred meaning. Stars 
would burn their way into our souls, 
and winds that blow as they list, with 
summer heat and winter cold, would re- 
mind us that we know not whence we 
have come, nor whither we shall go, but 
only that God's heaven arches over us. 
The tongue of the lisping child would 

94 



€J|e %ittlt 25ooft 

tell us of a Father's love ; the sparrows as 
they chirp and flutter in our streets would 
bespeak a Higher Life encircling all; and 
the people as they pass, whether busy 
in their work or careless in their play, 
would all be seen to be members of the 
same great human family, O God, how 
blind we are; how dull of heart and 
dense to understand! We move about 
in worlds of which we see and know not 
one one-hundredth part. And yet we talk 
of unbelief and lack of ground for faith ! 
Let us but learn to do the will of God in 
little ways ; let us but build Him temples 
for his worship from out the common- 
place of everyday existence ; then shall 
everyday existence be seen to be a miracle ; 
then shall our separate beings find their 
center in a Higher Being whose law and 
life are manifest in all that lies about us — 
in what is small as well as what is large* 



Cfjaptcr fiat 



MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS 



MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS 

The Great Aposde, writing to his 
friends at Rome, took occasion in one con- 
nection to remark that he rejoiced in tribu- 
lation. And he gave as one reason for his 
exultation in it, the fact of his persuasion 
that '' tribulation worketh patience, and pa- 
tience experience, and experience hope/' 
In re-reading the words the other day, I 
found myself wondering whether many 
persons, starting with tribulation, would 
have worked things out in any sequence 
such as that : tribulation, patience, experi- 
ence, hope. Notice the order. It was prog- 
ress onward from darkness into light; 
and from storm and flood into sunshine 
and calm waters. 

99 



a Confusion of Cottgueifif 

Some of us, I fancy, — and I am not 
disposed in any way to underrate the 
bravery and cheerfulness of human na- 
ture, — some of us would have felt in- 
clined to suggest a course the very oppo- 
site of that. Tribulation, we would have 
said, worketh discouragement; and dis- 
couragement means doubt, and doubt in- 
duces anxiety and apprehension. That is 
to say, there are many persons who have 
learned from life to be on their guard 
and not to hope too much. In the lan- 
guage of the day, they preach " Prepared- 
ness'': and preparedness implies the ex- 
pectation of trouble. 

The Great Apostle, however, was not 
that kind of man. Life had taught him 
not so much to fear as to hope; not to 
anticipate evil, but to look for good. The 
seed of sorrow might fall, indeed, into the 
furrows of his soul. They might take 

lOO 



root and grow up there ; they might put 
forth leaves and branches. But they would 
grow up into the sunlight, and they would 
blossom through the sunlight into hope. 
Those words, therefore, give clear and 
definite expression to the practical philos- 
ophy of a very wise and energetic indi- 
vidual whose life was crowded with trou- 
ble, uncertainty, and loss. Were we to 
put that philosophy into the homely lan- 
guage of everyday life, we would say, I 
suppose, that it was his studied principle 
to make the best of things. It will be 
worth our while, therefore, to consider 
what it means to <'make the best of 
things '' : to see how tribulation may work 
out patience, and patience build up an ex- 
perience that blossoms into hope. 

None of us are so favored in this world 
as not to be acquainted with sorrows, 
disappointments, failures, and anxieties. 

101 



91 ConfUiBfion of Congue^ef 

Let our lots be never so fortunate and 
successes never so frequent, we still are 
very constantly confronted v^ith things 
that are not in all respects as we should 
like to have them. Strong though we are 
and resourceful as we may become. Fate 
is our master still; and the only wise and 
profitable course for us to pursue is just 
to make the best of whatever burdens we 
may be called upon to bear. And yet, 
how many of us do the very opposite 
of this and make, in no wise the best, 
but almost the very worst, of unfavor- 
able circumstances and conditions. There 
is a marked tendency among people to 
answer disappointment and failure by bit- 
ter and vehement complaint, by sullen 
moodiness, or by retirement into a phase 
of selfishness that reacts most unpleas- 
antly upon others. With some persons 
it is always possible to tell by the nature 

102 



ar^afeing tlje ^t^t of CJ^ingsf 

of their moods when things have gone 
wrong. If their latest investment has 
turned out poorly, they repeat the quota- 
tions of the market in the suUenness of 
their demeanor. Because one little ele- 
ment in fortune has been against them, 
their entire attitude toward life becomes 
affected, and they act as if they thought 
it made things better to represent them 
as entirely bad. 

There are, of course, persons of an- 
other type in this world. All of us know 
them and rejoice to know them, while we 
seek to follow in their footsteps as we can. 
These are the men and women who 
never let their secret sorrows cast the 
slightest shadow upon their daily actions. 
Failures seem only to impel them to- 
ward stronger resolution, while tribula- 
tion works with them as it worked with 
the Apostle Paul. It was said, for in- 

103 



^ Confusion of Conguejef 

stance, of the masterful William of 
Orange, whom history has called "the 
Silent," that the thicker came to be the 
difficulties ahead of him, and the more 
threatening the plots for his assassination, 
the calmer and more cheerful grew his 
bearing. Like a rock in mid-ocean, un- 
moved by the waves and billows of mis- 
fortune, he embodied for his people at 
once the deep foundations of their na- 
tional cause and the majestic strength of 
human nature at its best. But ** the best '* 
is something very high. The best is never 
the result of compromise. And I am per- 
suaded of the fact that there are in this 
world many persons who simply do not 
understand what it means to make the 
best of things. Such persons seem to 
think, for instance, that making the best 
of things means no more than silent, 
stem endurance and an attitude of uncom- 

104 



flt^afeing t^e ^t^t of CljingiS 

plaining resignation. This — in a super- 
ficial sense — was the ideal that was 
cherished by those noble old philosophers, 
the Stoics. They schooled themselves to 
rise superior to Fate. It should never 
crush them, was their proud assertion. 
Outwardly they might be bent and lame, 
like Epictetus ; but inwardly they would 
be erect and calm. Though tempests 
were to beat against them, they would 
not complain; and though the stars in 
the sky were darkened, the light within 
should not be dimmed. 

Sometimes we see on the bleak and 
rugged seacoast of New England — at 
Beverly, perhaps, or Mount Desert — a 
twisted, gnarled, and stunted oak or 
cedar against which the wild storms of the 
stern Atlantic have beaten for years. It 
clings with seasoned fiber to the cold 
and sullen rock, living and growing in 

105 



3t ConfujJion of Congue^ 

spite of everything. But it has grown 
away from the winter winds, turning its 
back — as it were — to the quarter from 
which they blow. That is nature's sym- 
bol of the silent, sturdy, uncomplaining 
individual who refuses to be conquered 
and who seems to be making the best 
of things. There is pathos — there is 
grandeur, even — in the type. We can- 
not say, however, that it reaches the 
heights to which human nature may attain. 
We cannot say that it exhausts the pos- 
sibilities of human achievement, leaving 
nothing to be desired. There is some- 
thing that is higher still, and something 
that is more complete. 

An ideal rises up before us as we con- 
template this Stoic type — an ideal pre- 
senting qualities not so much in opposi- 
tion as in addition to the Stoic qualities. 
It is the ideal we know as Christian. And 

106 



Christian teaching says : Let the storms 
of life, together with its sunshine and its 
beauty, have share in developing your 
capacity for grov^th and your strength 
of soul. For tribulation w^orketh much 
more than mere patience and endurance. 
It worketh deep and rich experience, 
and experience is the soil out from v^hich 
grows the most tenacious hope. Does 
such attainment seem, perhaps, too much 
to expect of any human ? Many of the 
moral torch-bearers of this world have 
added luster to their lives as well as illu- 
mination to our ovm in just this very 
way. Let us look at some few of the 
lives that illustrate the thing I mean. 

Here, for instance, is the author of that 
hymn which has come to be so great a 
favorite in many churches — • 



a 



Love that wilt not let me go, 

1 rest my weary soul in thee.'' 

107 



31 Confusion of €ongueiS 

How many people, I wonder, know the 
history of the author of that hymn? It 
is worth knowing : it is worth remember- 
ing. The hymn was written by George 
Matheson: and George Matheson was 
a clergyman in charge of a large parish 
in Edinburgh. He was completely blind ; 
yet he preached from Sunday to Sunday, 
conducted the service of worship which 
he had learned by heart, and administered 
his church affairs for many years. Surely 
he had made the best of things when, out 
of dark experience, he could write — 

** O Light that followed all my way, 
I yield my flickering torch to Thee. 
My heart restores its borrowed ray 
That, in thy sunshine's blaze, its day 
May brighter, fairer be.'' 

But he, of course, is only one of many 
men who have pushed on and achieved, 
perhaps because a mighty struggle was 

108 



a^afeing tJje ^t^t of CfjingjBf 

required. In the early days of the Re- 
formation movement, when intellectual 
and religious Europe was in a state of 
turmoil and upheaval, so that it was not 
safe for Martin Luther to be left at large, 
his good and brave friend, the Elector of 
Saxony, out of the kindness of his heart, 
carried him off and shut him up in his 
lonely castle on the Wartburg. The 
solitude was irksome to the impetuous 
Reformer. He chafed at the restraint, 
holding it to be cowardly. For his own 
part, he would have preferred to take 
his chances in the world of men. But 
the situation was one of which, at least, 
he made the best. In the quiet of his 
long captivity he resolutely set to work 
to translate the Bible into German. And 
in due course of time this Bible in the 
vernacular came to be the very source 
and fountain-head of a new life and lit- 

109 



31 ConfujBiion of CongurjS 

erature for his people. Through it Mar- 
tin Luther was enabled to spread the 
Word much more widely, indeed, than 
he ever could have done in liberty. 

Or, take another instance that has 
similar features. Campanella, an Italian 
monk, was suspected of heresy. Perse- 
cuted and finally arrested, he was held 
in prison for long years. Under restraint, 
however, and in darkness, his restless 
spirit sought and found release. Denied 
the solace of the outer sun, he had a 
vision of a new and higher state of civil- 
ized existence that some day might dawn, 
and he wrote out, though in darkness, 
the treatise which he called the City of 
the Sun. 

At the present time, with the change 
that has come in religious thought and 
the lessened emphasis upon personal sal- 
vation, not many of us are familiar with 

110 



flt^afting tf^e ^t^t of ^Jjingjf 

Pilgrim's Progress. Few books in the 
world, however, have been so widely 
read. And Bunyan wrote that extraor- 
dinary volume, so full of vivid pictures, 
so lifelike in its allegories, under circum- 
stances very similar to those of which 
Luther and Campanella made the best: 
Pilgrim's Progress was written in the 
squalid county jail at Bedford. 

And thus it is in times not alone of 
outward but of inward captivity and pain 
and loss. The duty rests upon us all, not 
simply to endure uncomplainingly the 
various vicissitudes of our lives, but to 
see to it that they develop in us greater 
kindness, sympathy, courage, and con- 
sideration. Dante, surely, made the best 
of exile from his beloved Florence when 
he worked out, in his "wander years,'' 
the wonders of the Divine Comedy; and 
Tennyson did the same, when, out of 

111 



31 ConfUiGfiott of CongueiS 

the jarring notes of a youthful sorrow, 
he made the melodies of In Memoriam. 
And in countless instances, and in wider 
ways, this law of growth has been ex- 
emplified. Let us for a moment, there- 
fore, look at matters from a larger point 
of view. When individual men and wo- 
men seem to disappoint us, we may often 
find comfort and encouragement in turn- 
ing to mankind. It was Plato who said 
long ago that his interest was not so 
much in men as in man. 

In spite of the many failings and mani- 
fest shortcomings of the human individ- 
ual, it can be said with the most literal 
truth that the human race has nobly, and 
even grandly, made the best of things. 
For instance : let us suppose that as hu- 
man creatures we had accepted compla- 
cently and philosophically all our inher- 
ent limitations and restrictions. Where 

112 



a^afting t^t ^t^t of C^ingsf 

would be the glory and the grandeur of 
human progress ? Suppose that the mem- 
bers of the human species had said to 
themselves : *' No : we have not the keen 
glance of the eagle, nor the swift foot of 
the antelope, nor the great strength of 
the mastodon, nor the sharp sense of many 
a wild creature of forest and field. It is 
most unfortunate that such is true. But 
let us not complain ; let us rather accept 
things as they are.'' Suppose that that 
had been a characteristically human at- 
titude of mind. Where would have been 
the telescope and the microscope ? And 
where our swift-rushing servants of steam 
and electricity? Because that was not 
man's mental attitude ; because in a large 
sense — which also was a literal sense — 
men made the best of the shortness of 
their sight, and the slowness of their feet, 
and the dullness of their outward senses, 

113 



^ ConfUjSion of €ongueief 

we to-day are looking oiF into measure- 
less miles of space, and outspeeding far, 
with our various contrivances, the swift- 
est-footed of God's creatures. Making 
the best of things like these has meant 
miracles of wonderful invention ; it has 
meant a tremendous addition to the pow- 
ers, capacities, and possibilities of human 
attainment ; and by just so much it has 
increased the endowment of every child 
bom into the world. 

The history of a period less remote 
and of a sphere of activity more familiar 
contains still further revelation of our 
present-day indebtedness to those who 
have wrestled with hard things that 
they might find therein some blessing. 
A generation since there was great con- 
fusion and distress among students of re- 
ligion. Religious thought was passing 
through one of the stormy periods of its 

114 



growth. Those marvelous discoveries of 
science v^ith which we are all perfectly 
familiar to-day were then first divulged ; 
and they were very clearly in antago- 
nism with many of the cherished teachings 
of religion. The two seemed to be incom- 
patible. The Bible, it was said, could not 
be true were evolution also true. There 
came to be a struggle, therefore, of 
great intellects; and this struggle was 
painfully repeated in many an individual 
heart and conscience. Many persons 
who thought themselves informed, and 
who wished above all things to be hon- 
est, gave up the cause of faith. They 
said, "We do not know. It is all a 
mystery." And they called themselves 
henceforth the J^Tot-knowers, or Agnos- 
tics. From their point of view, only the 
cold and cheerless tenets of skepticism 
and materialism seemed to be consistent 

115 



31 ConfujSiott of Conguejf 

with intellectual integrity ; and they pro- 
phesied that all the world must come in 
time to occupy their position. They made, 
as they thought, the best of things. As 
it has proved, however, it was not these 
Stoic agnostics but another group of 
thinkers, fully as sincere and with some- 
what wider outlook, who really made the 
best of these discoveries. 

These were the thinkers who argued : 
^*This seems to be the truth. But, if it 
be truth, it is of God. Therefore, there 
must be inspiration in it : there must be 
ground for hope and faith and joy.'' Ar- 
guing thus, these scholars accepted the 
unwelcome offerings of science ; with 
patience they dwelt upon the cold, for- 
bidding theories of evolution, universal 
law, and all the rest ; and lo, these stones 
of science were found to contain the very 
bread of life. Through them was re- 

116 



vealed a new vision of the purposes and 
providences of God ; and in the light of 
this clearer, higher vision, the little old 
beliefs of the Fall of Man, and one in- 
spired Book, and special miracles done 
long centuries ago, have been worked 
over into the Ascent of Man, and the 
Bible of the human race, and the endless 
miracle of day and night, seed-time and 
harvest, birth and death and endless resur- 
rection. Tribulation worked out patience, 
and patience has widened into deep ex- 
perience and hope. It was thus that re- 
ligion came to make the best of science. 
And now, behold, another period of even 
greater trial and confusion has come upon 
religion and the churches of the Chris- 
tian faith. It has been brought about by 
war. And war, so awful always in itself, 
has been made more awful than it ever was 
before by the way in which the inven- 

117 



91 ConfUiGfion of CongucjS 

tions and appliances of science have been 
prostituted to its causes. It is indescrib- 
ably terrible: the whole world suffers 
tribulation. Doubts rise up and lay hold 
upon us all — doubts in regard to God 
and man and human life in the future. 
For my own part, however, I cannot 
help believing that if we are only pa- 
tient and wait until the world has worked 
out a great body of deep experience, 
then, in this case as in all the others, 
experience will furnish the sure founda- 
tions for new hope and joy. There is 
nothing much more trying than uncer- 
tainty. When what we think the Right 
is worsted, we are hard beset by doubts. 
But when men stand up — as they do — 
stronger, purer, braver for their strug- 
gles ; when, through struggle, it is seen 
that vision becomes clarified, then our 
faith returns. And it returns stronger 

118 



a^afeins tl^f 25e3Bft of Cljings? 
than it ever has been before. And so I 
doubt not that the best will be made, in 
time, of the experiences that the world 
is passing through just now. When, be- 
cause of them. Peace becomes more 
highly valued; when the nations face 
more resolutely toward the light ; when, 
in a word, the human race becomes 
more human, then shall we be able to 
read the meaning of this distressing 
epoch in the history of the world — and 
to read it to our moral and spiritual 
gain. 

Then let us lay a solemn tribute dovm 
at the feet of all those who have gone 
forward with courage, through the gates 
of tribulation into pastures green with 
hope and rich in great productive power. 
As they went they were strengthened, 
helped, encouraged from on high. For 
this is ever true in life : that helping we 

119 



31 Confusion of Conguc^ef 

are helped, and struggling we are given 
strength, and looking up we are lifted up 
until we come to feel ourselves a part of 
something larger, higher than ourselves. 
Thus, when we put forth effort to make 
the best of things — of sad things and of 
hard things — we find ourselves made 
strong to bear things that are sad and 
hard. Our faith becomes deep-rooted and 
is strengthened in the process ; while, in 
seeking for the good, we come to a larger 
and a truer knowledge of the ways and 
laws of God. 



i( 



a 



For life is good, whose tidal flow 
The motions of God's will obeys : 
And death is good, that makes us know 
The Life divine which all things sway. 

And good it is to bear the Cross 
And so the perfect peace to win ; 
And naught is ill, nor brings us loss, 
That brings the light of heaven in.'' 



Cljapter ^ix 



HOW TO CHOOSE 



HOW TO CHOOSE 



I WISH to begin what I have to say on 
the subject of How to Choose, by hold- 
ing up for contemplation two familiar 
pictures. They are very old pictures, 
but both of them have a modern mean- 
ing. Each of us can put them in the 
frames of personal experience and hang 
them on the walls of our individual lives. 

The first picture is thoroughly Ori- 
ental. Two men, in flowing Eastern 
dress, are standing on a spur of rising 
ground. We see their figures clearly sil- 
houetted against a background of bright 
blue sky. They are Lot and Abraham : 
and Lot is making his choice. The two 
men are kinsmen. Up to this time they 

123 



% ConfUiSion of ConguejS 

have lived together on the best of terms. 
But their servants have begun to quar- 
rel, and the two have come to feel that 
they must part. It were better for them 
to separate as friends, and not to wait 
until they have become involved in the 
disagreements of their followers. 

Abraham is the older of the two. And 
out of his large and generous nature he 
has said to his friend and kinsman: "You 
choose, my brother. The whole land is 
here before us. There is room enough 
for both. If you will take the right hand, 
then I will go to the left : or, if you pre- 
fer the left hand, I will travel to the 
right.^^ 

So the younger man, full of rejoic- 
ing, probably, that the choice is his, 
goes up on a ridge of rising ground and 
throws an eager glance around. On the 
one side he sees the shadowy outlines 

124 



J^oiu to Cfjoojtfe 

of distant mountains, the jagged peaks of 
which are sharp against the sky. It is 
evident that the land in that direction is 
a land of great uncertainties — a wild and 
rugged land where toil and enterprise 
will be required. In the other direction, 
however, it is different. He sees there a 
sunlit plain that is watered by a winding 
river. It is an open, fertile, pleasant land. 
Indeed, it seems a very garden of the 
Lord, with its clustering vines and hang- 
ing fruit. It is a land for indolence and 
ease, with no tangled valleys to explore 
and no rocky hills to plough and plant 
with care and difficulty. And so with 
careless joy Lot chooses it. Calling his 
servants together he journeys east, into 
the land of Jordan. And lo, you remem- 
ber the result. His choice involved his 
ruin. He sank into the luxurious and sin- 
ful ease of Sodom and Gomorrah, which 

125 



31 ConfujSion of €ongueiS 

the Lord at last destroyed because of 
their iniquity. 

That is a picture from the realm of 
legend. Side by side with it let me hang 
a companion-piece which is, perhaps, 
more familiar and which was painted by 
mythology. A youthful shepherd, by the 
name of Paris, is feeding his flocks on 
the sloping hillsides of Mount Ida. In 
the sunlit morning of his life his days 
seem full of promise. And now, de- 
scending from Olympus, three heavenly 
beings come with word from Zeus that 
he — Paris — must decide a dispute which 
exists among them. A controversy has 
arisen as to which of them is most beau- 
tiful. And the father of gods and men 
has sent them to the unsophisticated 
youth that judgment may be rendered. 
The three present their claims, seeking 
to influence the decision by their various 

126 



J^otD to €I)00iSfe 

promises of reward. One of them says 
that, if he will decide in her favor, she 
will give him power and great riches. 
The second says that she will endow 
him with great glory and wisdom among 
men. And the third agrees that he shall 
have the most beautiful woman in all the 
world to be his wife. The youth must 
choose. It is so decreed. 

And he chooses. Putting aside power, 
putting aside wisdom, he yields to the 
allurement of the senses. And the choice, 
according to the old mythology, not only 
involved at last his own ruin, but brought 
upon the world the tragedies and losses 
of the Trojan War. 

These two pictures are suggestive be- 
cause of the fact that they are so intensely 
and supremely human. We can all of us 
see ourselves in the center of each can- 
vas. The positions of Lot and Paris are 

127 



^ €onfu$sion of Congueis? 

how often our own positions, and their 
perplexity our perplexity. Like them we 
have to choose. Again and again, year 
after year, week after week, day after 
day, hour by hour we have to make our 
choices. Which way shall we go ? Which 
prospect and which promise seems the 
best? Sometimes the choices are only 
trivial — or at least appear so. And then 
again, with sinking sense of dread, we 
perceive that a long and important series 
of events will inevitably follow from the 
thing we choose. In moments such as 
these we often wish some Zeus or Abra- 
ham were at hand that we might say to 
him : " I do not want this privilege you 
give me. I would rather let the choice be 
yours. Choose for me and I will abide 
by your decree.'' 

The choices of life: how numerous 
they are, how difficult and troublesome. 

128 



I^oh) to C{)oo^e 

How easy and how simple life would be 
without them; how free from anxiety, 
from deep despondency, and the after 
sense of mistaken judgment. And yet 
— how uninteresting also. There is an 
old and somewhat unfamiliar proverb 
which says, ** He who has a choice is 
tortured.'' We often long to run away 
from the great decisions of life ; to post- 
pone them ; to get some one else to as- 
sume them for us and so ourselves escape 
the torture. None the less, we all know 
full well that the power and privilege to 
choose is one of the greatest dignities 
with which God in his wisdom has en- 
dowed us. It belongs to all that is wor- 
thiest in duty and in destiny. Every 
temptation in life implies a choice. Shall 
we yield ourselves, the question is, to be 
led away by some lower impulse, or 
shall we swear renewed allegiance to 

129 



^ Confusion of €onsuejsr 

life's higher motives ? The use of every 
leisure hour implies a choice. The books 
we read ; the companionships v^e form ; 
the activities in which we engage ; the 
very thoughts we think and the pleasures 
we pursue — all these and how many 
other things are largely matters left to 
our choice. The Abraham of a higher 
unseen Power stands beside us and we 
hear the words : " The whole land is be- 
fore you ; you may take the mountains 
on the right hand or the meadows on the 
left. Choose, therefore ; the privilege is 
yours.'' 

Now whoso chooses well, lives well: 
since life is the sum of innumerable 
choices. For my own part, therefore, the 
longer I live and the more I see of people, 
the higher I incline to value the somewhat 
prosaic quality of good judgment. It does 
not seem to me that I underestimate in 

130 



i^ott} to €t)00iefe 

any way the significance of briUiancy or 
talent of high order. All of us know 
how much these may accomplish and for 
how much they should count. Moreover, 
I am very certain that I do not forget the 
importance of industry and perseverance. 
Innumerable are the cases in which the 
plodders and hard workers of the world 
have outstripped and left far behind the 
gifted and the highly endowed who lacked 
the capacity for continuous effort and 
application. Neither do I minimize the 
value of right instincts, pure motives, 
high desires, and noble impulses. These 
form the groundwork of all conduct: 
they are the qualities that make up good 
behavior. What I have in mind, how- 
ever, and feel distinctly sure about, is this : 
without good judgment all these other 
things may be miserably wasted. Sym- 
pathy is beautiful; but it sometimes goes 

131 



^ ConfujBfion of €ott0uejf 

astray. Right impulses are noble ; directed 
right, they are still more noble. People 
frequently are good, without being good 
for very much. We all admire persever- 
ance; but we admire it most when we 
see it well applied, along lines that are 
likely to prove productive. As for bril- 
liancy, great capacity, exceptional gifts 
of one kind or another — how constantly 
they seem to count for almost nothing 
save moral ruin and disaster. 

One of the saddest things in life is the 
waste of life. Bright promises fade away ; 
careers, beginning well, take some unfor- 
tunate turn, make some mistaken choice, 
and close in disappointment. Good judg- 
ment, therefore, — which is the capacity 
for choosing well and making wise deci- 
sions, — constitutes what we may call the 
rudder of the ship of life. It contributes 
not to the speed but to the safety of the 

13s 



J^otD to Ci)ooiEre 

voyage. It is the thing that guides us to- 
ward a goal, that keeps us on our course, 
and that helps us to avoid the reefs and 
shoals and dangerous headlands which 
form a part of every voyage. As com- 
pared with the throbbing engine, or the 
spreading sails, it may seem of little mo- 
ment or interest. But without it, both 
sails and engine would lead life to disas- 
ter. Let us take some thought, then, of 
the choices of life. Let us consider how 
we may avoid the fate of Lot and escape 
the error that brought disaster upon 
Paris. 

And first of all, we shall do wisely to 
recognize the fact that people are largely 
known by their choices. What we choose, 
in other words, is a pretty accurate index 
of what we are. We know the charac- 
ter of Lot, for instance, by that single 
choice of his. We know that he was selfish, 

133 



^ Confusion of ConguejS 

since he did not hesitate to take what 
seemed to be the best of all the land ; and 
we know that he was indolent, for the rea- 
son that he chose the locality that prom- 
ised least of effort and hard work. In just 
such fashion all of us give almost certain 
proof, each day, of what we are by what 
we choose. 

"If God should stand before me, and 
hold out to me in his right hand Truth, 
and in his left hand the ever-restless 
search for Truth ; and should say to me, 
^Choose: you may have whichever you 
prefer ' ; I would bow reverently to his left 
hand, which held the search for Truth, 
and say, ^Father, give: pure Truth is 
for Thee alone/ '' Thus spoke Lessing, 
the German thinker and reformer. Of 
course, that was only an imaginary choice. 
It was a picture, or a parable. And yet 
it tells us, without any added testimony 

134 



I^oto to C^ooiS^e 

being needed, just what the intellectual 
life of Lessing was and what he taught. 
Through its revelation we know him to 
have been a man who set his face against 
all dogmatism and who decried all claims 
on the part of churches, or of individuals, 
to have arrived at Truth. 

And what shall we say of the actual 
choices that all of us set down in the 
book of life each and every day, telling 
just as truly as did Lessing's hypotheti- 
cal choice the nature of our lives and 
characters. They are, many of them, 
trivial ; but even the least of them gives 
clear indication of that from which it has 
sprung. Here, for instance, is a woman 
who constantly regrets, if she does not 
openly complain, that she has no leisure 
for reading. And yet, if you observe her 
week by week, you will notice that she 
squanders, either in idleness or in idle 

135 



31 ConfUiSion of €cnQue^ 

occupations, many precious hours that, 
with a little resolution, might be given to 
interests that count. She does not know 
it ; the process goes on silently ; but she 
actually does choose, after all; and she 
chooses the part that is unworthy. 

And here, it may be, is a man who is 
closely related to her by the ties of moral 
kinship. He is absorbed in business. 
Were it not for business, he tells us, he 
would willingly do something for the 
public service. You perceive, however, 
if you give your attention to the matter, 
that he has time and strength for all that 
he really cares about. The truth with 
regard to this man is that he chooses, 
first of all, to serve himself. And his 
silent choice betrays his character. 

What both of these people need to com- 
plain about is not the lack of time, but the 
lack of right habit and of resolution suf- 

136 



J^oUj to CljooiaEe 

ficiendy strong to rearrange and redeem 
time. " Time/' said old Benjamin Frank- 
lin, "is the stuff of life/' And he might 
have added that it is a most elastic stuff. 
It stretches almost in proportion to the 
amount of pressure that we put upon it. 
The choice is ours. Time comes to us 
with gifts that we may either take or 
leave ; make use of wisely or ignorantly 
squander. It was Emerson, you will re- 
member, who gave such exquisite form 
to the thing we speak of as " the proces- 
sion of the days.'' 

*' Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, 
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, 
And marching single in an endless file, 
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. 
To each they offer gifts after his will, 
Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds 

them all. 
I, in my pleached garden, watched the 

pomp, 

137 



^ ConfUiSiion of €on0ue$( 

Forgot my morning wishes, hastily 
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day 
Turned and departed silent. I, too late, 
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn/' 

And thus it is that the days reveal us 
to ourselves and to others by reason of 
the choices that we make. But in addi- 
tion to this fact, it is likewise important 
to remember that, more than often, what 
we choose is determined directly and in- 
evitably by what we like. This is almost 
always the case in minor matters : and fre- 
quently it is true when it comes to critical 
decisions. The line of personal liking is the 
line of least resistance, and we naturally 
follow it. It results, therefore, that to 
improve our choices we must, first of all, 
improve our tastes. By changing the na- 
ture of the things we like, we change 
the character of the things we choose. 
"No statement of mine," wrote Ruskin, 

138 



I^olD to CI)ooie(e 

" has ever been more earnestly or oftener 
controverted than this : that good taste is 
a moral quality. What v^e like deter- 
mines what we are ; and to teach taste is 
to teach character/' It is a very practical 
duty, therefore, devolving upon us all, 
to cultivate our enjoyment of the good, 
the true, the holy, and the pure. If by 
nature we do not appreciate or value the 
qualities which the best judgment of the 
world has determined to be of worth, then 
we need to set ourselves to learn to like 
them. Nor is it impossible to accomplish 
such an end. Just as seeing and study- 
ing the best works of art gradually cause 
us to turn away dissatisfied with any but 
the best; just as hearing the best music 
and seeing the best drama, though at 
first we neither understand nor enjoy 
them, yet gradually make us feel the 
emptiness and even worthlessness of 

139 



a ConfUiBfion of Congue^S 

what is light and feeble ; so by keeping 
steadily before our minds the images of 
the good, the noble and unselfish, we 
educate ourselves to turn instinctively 
the way they lead. 

Again, — and what is more important 
still, — in learning how to choose we need 
to strengthen the habit of considering, not 
the immediate present, not the matter of 
momentary satisfaction ; but, rather, what 
is going to be permanent, and what is going 
to give continuous satisfaction. God has 
given us all the faculty of looking for- 
ward; and he has given it to us to be used. 
It is never a question of to-day alone, nor 
even of to-morrow; our choices involve 
the weeks arid months and, it may be, the 
years which silently and solemnly stretch 
out before us. How many a disaster 
comes, how many a disappointment, how 
many a cause for long extended sufFer- 

140 



J^oto to €f)ooiSfc 

ing and remorse, because we look alone 
at what is just before. The momentary 
appetite that we would satisfy ; the pres- 
ent pleasure that we seek to gain; these 
rise up and obscure the things that lie 
beyond. 

In the familiar legend Esau sold his 
birthright, the privilege of a lifetime, for 
just a dish of pottage with which to satisfy 
a temporary craving; and fact makes 
even more familiar than does the legend 
this tendency of our natures to choose 
with reference only to the passing mo- 
ment. More than once we have, each of 
us, been guilty of Esau's mistaken choice. 
In all the choices that we are called upon 
to make, therefore, the element of time 
ought to be given first consideration. The 
Lot within us, looking down upon some 
pleasant, tempting valley, needs ever to 
be reminded of the cities of Sodom and 

141 



31 Confusfiott of Conguejtf 

Gomorrah which lie beyond the range of 
vision, but which to-morrow, if we go 
that way, will claim us for their residents. 
Indeed, some one has said that the most 
important element in the moral life is the 
power to visualize or to feel the sensa- 
tions of **the moment after/' There is 
many a temptation, many an alluring 
prospect which presents itself at night, 
but which loses all charm when the morn- 
ing light breaks around us ; and there is 
many a desire which goads us through 
the day only to recede in the calm, re- 
flective hours of night. 

There is another thought, however, — 
a thought more important than any of 
those we have thus far considered, and of 
greater guiding worth. It is the thought, 
moreover, that forms the background 
of the two familiar pictures I hung be- 
fore you at the outset and sought to have 

142 



I^otD to €I)oo$fe 

you consider. Lot chose the Jordan val- 
ley and turned his steps in that direction 
because that way appeared to promise 
ease. He would find a minimum of 
labor there: self-support would not be 
hard. And just on that account it was 
that trouble waited for him, and disaster 
rose up to waylay and, finally, to defeat 
him. Because there was no challenge for 
his soul, his soul was ultimately lost. 

In this matter of the conduct of life, 
of right behavior, there is nothing that we 
need to guard against much more than 
just this tendency to neglect such chal- 
lenge. We are much inclined in the pres- 
ent day to make things easy and to have 
things pleasant. We begin with educa- 
tion. We would have our children taught 
by engaging them in play. And we end 
in morals and religion by avoiding what 
is irksome, dark, and difficult We have 

143 



a. Confusion of Congucj* 

behind us an ancestry that points a better 
way. But we look back at the sternness 
of the Puritan ideal and we hold it up, in 
frequent instances, to ridicule and scorn. 
Those grim old forefathers, we declare, 
imagined that if a thing was pleasant it 
must, therefore, be wrong ; whereas what- 
ever was hard and disagreeable they con- 
sidered to be right. They chose the way 
that was difficult and they set themselves 
to do and to endure. And I believe that 
in doing so they chose the better part. 
It seems to me, when I look back at the 
lives those Puritans lived, and the work 
they did, and the characters they shaped 
— it seems to me that we might find in 
their ideal a thing not to laugh at half so 
much as to live by. \yhenever two ways 
lie before us, one of which is easy and the 
other hard, one of which requires no ex- 
ertion while the other calls for resolution 

144 



j^oto to CfiooiBEe 

and endurance, — happy is the man and 
blessed the woman who chooses out the 
mountain path and scorns the thought of 
resting in the valley. These are the men 
and women who are destined, in the end, 
to conquer and succeed. 

When in doubt, select the harder path, 
the steeper way, the sterner claim. Does 
that appear too rigorous a rule to lay 
down for the conduct of our daily lives ? 
At least we all know this : that the way 
of service is the way of self-denial. God 
means this life of ours to be a battle, not 
a holiday excursion. He has made our 
natures such that only as we overcome 
do we grow. Our happiness results not 
from receiving but from reaching. I look 
back to the teachings which we seek to 
make the guide and inspiration of our 
lives and this I find is what the Master 
taught. His way was a way of struggle, 

145 



^ Confusion of Congueitf 

not of ease ; of sacrifice and not enjoy- 
ment. He called to men and bade them 
lift the cross. I look around me at the 
way this world is ordered and I find the 
same great law at work. It is they who 
choose or who find themselves compelled 
to take the mountain-path; who spurn 
the valley with its languorous ease; who 
fit themselves for service ; who lift the 
cross, — it is they who find the prizes 
that life has in keeping for the brave. 

Yes, and what is more : I look at men 
and women such as those we live with, 
work with, talk with day by day; and I 
realize that always in their higher, truer 
moments, always when the cause is great 
and the call defined, they follow this 
same guiding principle. Without doubt, 
the descendants of Lot are many — they 
who love the easy path which lies along 
the Jordan valley : but the descendants of 

146 



J^oUJ to Cf)003BSC 

Abraham are as the multitude of the stars 
in the heavens, and they shine as brightly. 

When my faith burns dim, therefore, 
and the moments of depression come, I 
turn for strength to think of the hard 
things and the brave things and the great 
things v^hich human beings calmly choose 
to do, I turn to the men and v^omen 
who, in times like these, make such choice. 
I see them in an endless rov^, radiant, 
joyous, patient, as they go out to serve at 
posts of danger. Undaunted and serene, 
they approach the gates of death and 
pass them v^ithout fear. 

Yes : it is the glory of the human be- 
ing that he does not fear to choose the 
arduous. For 



(C 



There is no life except in death, 
There is no gain except by loss ; 
No glory but by bearing shame, 
No triumph save beneath the Cross." 



Cfjapter ^ebcn 



THE "if" and "though" OF FAITH 



THE "IF" AND "THOUGH" 
OF FAITH 1 



Jacob is one of the most contradictory 
characters in the Bible. One never knows 
exactly where to find him. A double- 
minded man, he was certainly unstable 
in all his ways. He was devout, but he 
was likewise deceitful. He looked above 
for mercy, but he looked around for ways 
of self-advancement. He was good at set- 
ting up altars, but he was equally good at 
setting up a trade. He was ready in mak- 
ing religious vows, but he was no less 
ready in making business deals. He was 
not averse to taking advantage of heavenly 

' George Hodges, Christianity between Sundays^ 
p. 200. 

151 



31 Confuitfton of Congue^ 

assistance, but neither was he averse to 
taking advantage of his family and friends. 
As he appears on the pages of the Bible, 
he was a sharp and calculating hand at 
driving a bargain. When he saw his 
brother faint with hunger, he offered 
him a mess of pottage in exchange for 
the birthright — a precious possession in 
those times, a thing for a lifetime. And 
he got it. He secured it, however, by 
deceit and he lived to be punished for his 
sin. Like many an inveterate trader, too, 
he sometimes was outwitted. We re- 
member, for instance, the compact he 
made with his uncle Laban. He agreed 
to serve his uncle for seven years ; and 
in return he was to receive Rachel for 
wife. But Laban had the family instinct 
and was equally unscrupulous. Instead 
of Rachel, at the end of seven years he 
gave Jacob his older daughter, Leah. And 

152 



€l|e ^^f f ^^ anb '' €^mQ^'' of f ait|) 

Jacob had to make another bargain and 
serve another seven years. 

Now this deep-grained instinct of his 
for making bargains he carried over into 
his religion. He had a vision in w^hich 
God appeared to him. He was deeply 
impressed and he declared that he be- 
lieved. But even now he was not dis- 
posed to give unless he got something 
in return. He built an altar and he made 
a vow. But his vow was accompanied by 
a condition. "7f," he said, — 'Uf God 
will be with me, and will keep and care 
for me ; if God will give me bread to 
eat and raiment to put on, so that I come 
again to my father's house in peace; then 
shall the Lord be my God, and I will be- 
lieve in him, and will worship him de- 
voutly.'' His faith, as is clearly seen, 
had a considerable condition attached to 
it; his religion was accompanied by a 

153 



^ Confujefion of €on0ttCiS 

very big if. If I get what I want, I will 
believe. Tf I am prosperous and the world 
goes well with me, then will my heart 
be lifted up in trust and confidence. But 
otherwise let not God suppose that I can 
be counted upon for reverence and wor- 
ship. 

In this respect, as well as in many 
other ways, Jacob was the father of a 
mighty race and has had a host of direct 
descendants. Indeed, a great deal of re- 
ligion, from the very first, has been con-- 
ditional religion. It has been based upon 
a bargain. It has rested upon an if. Take 
the element of sacrifice, for example. 
Almost all religions, in their early days 
at least, have had some rites or forms 
of sacrifice connected with them. Under 
such influence, people have been encour- 
aged to give up something — and often 
something that was very precious. They 

154 



€f|e ^^f f ^^ anti ''^f^mgfy'' of faitfi 

have taken animals, they have even taken 
children, and laid them bleeding upon the 
altar as offerings to God. And for v^hat 
reason have they done it? They have 
done it on the basis of a bargain. They 
have believed that if they gave some- 
thing they would receive something in 
return. And the more precious the thing 
they gave the more certain were they to 
receive some substantial benefit by way 
of compensation. Divine favor, as they 
saw it, could be bought. That is one side 
of the matter. And at times it has been a 
very superstitious and even sordid side. 

But there is another side. It is true 
that faith and worship are frequently de- 
pendent upon favorable circumstance. 
There are many modem illustrations of 
the fact. We believe: but some of us 
believe only under certain conditions — 
which are generally conditions of pros- 

155 



^ CoufuiSfton of €onsuej$ 

perity. There are in this world, however, 
men and women of another fiber ; whose 
moral and religious life has very differ- 
ent foundation. The basis of their faith 
is the subject under discussion in one of 
the most beautiful — and perhaps the 
most remarkable — of all the books of 
the Bible. Theirs is the deep problem and 
theirs the solution that lies at the heart 
of the drama in the Book of Job. In the 
Book of Job, you will remember, Satan 
was one of the leading characters. And 
Satan claimed that Job's religion was re- 
ligion with an if. Moreover, he set about 
to prove that this was so. 

The opening scene of the drama is laid 
in the heavenly regions, and upon a day 
when the angels had come to present 
themselves to the Most High. Among 
the others Satan, the accuser of men, 
appeared. He brought many charges 

156 



€l)c ^^f f ^^ anH ''Z\^om^ '' of 5Faitf> 

against the sordidness and sinfulness of 
human beings. But God refuted him by 
calling attention to his servant Job, a man 
absolutely blameless in his piety and vir- 
tue. Satan, hov^ever, w^as very far from 
being convinced. " That 's all very v^ell,'' 
he argued, " but does Job serve God for 
naught? You have hedged him in and 
prospered him. But just take away his 
possessions and see w^hat will happen." 
So suffering was sent to Job. His cattle 
were killed ; his children died ; his house 
was destroyed by a whirlwind ; and Job 
was heart-broken. He tore his clothes ; 
he shaved his head. ^' Naked,'' he cried, 
^< was I born, and naked shall I return.'* 
But immediately he added, very humbly, 
^' The Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
taken away. Blessed be the Name of the 
Lord." And in all this Job sinned not. 
But Satan still was unconvinced. Some- 

157 



31 ConfujSion of Congucjsf 

where there must be an if. " Very good/^ 
he said, " but possessions, after all, are 
only one thing. Now touch his person/' 
So a loathsome disease was sent upon 
Job and his misery was complete. His 
wife reproached him: his friends ac- 
cused him. But Job was adamant. His 
soul stood firm. " Shall we receive good 
at the hands of God and not evil also ? 
Though He slay me, yet will I trust 
Him." Such was his firm and final dec- 
laration. There was no if m Job's re- 
ligion. 

Here, then, are two very diverse con- 
ceptions of religion. In the one case is a 
religion based upon a bargain ; in the 
other is a religion independent of all 
bargains. 

That there is a great deal of Jacob- 
religion in the world is an unhappy but 
undeniable fact. Religion, for example^, 

158 



€f)e ''^V anti '' €f|ou0f) '' of f aittj 

has to do with happiness. Our faith should 
contribute to our cheerfulness and cour- 
age and contentment. How often it is 
true, however, that our happiness has an 
/f attached to it. We would be happy if: 
— [f we had more money ; or were not 
obliged to work so hard; or had not 
known such heavy losses; or did not 
have so many causes for anxiety. A 
great many of us are cheerful only under 
certain conditions. We are bright when 
the sky is bright ; we are sunny when 
the sky is clear, when the winter is well 
past and the signs of spring appear. 
When things go well with us they go 
well for the members of our families and 
for our friends. But when we have met 
with disappointment and rebuff at the 
hands of fortune or of fate, others are 
made to know it and to feel it quite as 
keenly as we do ourselves. Many per- 

159 



% Confusion of ConguejS 

sons are mercurial in more senses than 
they reahze. Their generosity goes up, 
their cheerfubiess, their amiability, their 
courage, and their faith go up, just in ac- 
cordance with the atmospheric condi- 
tions, as it were, of their outward for- 
tunes. Happiness for all these people is 
conditional. They are happy when it is 
easy and perfectly natural to be happy. 
But when the chill and wintry blasts of 
trouble blow, then their spirits suddenly 
go down — at times as low as zero. They 
are like Jacob in the wilderness. The 
god of happiness is their god, and they 
hold to him just as long as they are fed 
and clothed and permitted to go upon a 
prosperous way. 

All of us know well, however, that 
the only genuine and worthy happiness 
and optimism is that which makes the 
best of things; which compels smiles 

160 



€l^e ''^t'' anil ''Z^mg^f^'' of faitli 

through tears, and patient hopefulness in 
the face of sorrow, difficulty, perplexity, 
and disappointment. The cheerfulness 
that counts, the courage that we admire, 
the buoyancy of spirit that has value is 
that which holds a though in it; which 
comes hard ; which is not simply a re- 
flection from within of that which lies 
without. It is a virtue to be hopeful only 
when the clouds hang low and when the 
horizon all around is dark. It is valorous 
to wear a cheerful front only when we 
are not fed and clothed as we desire, 
and when the road of life is rough and 
hard and painful. All other happiness is 
based upon a sordid bargain. It lacks 
those inner, spiritual elements which are 
the essence of all true religion. And not 
until we shall have acquired a capacity 
for this other, inner happiness, shall we 
be able to enter into the experience of 

161 



at €onfuj6fion of Congueiaf 

the Great Apostle who could say that 
he had learned, in whatever state he 
found himself, therewith to be content. 
*<I know,'' he declared, "I have learned 
the secret, both to be filled and to be 
hungry, both to abound and to be in 
want. I can do all things in Him that 
strengtheneth me/' 

And what is true of happiness is still 
more true with respect to duty which 
forms so large a part of all religion. 
The virtue of a great many persons has 
an if in it. How many would be gener- 
ous provided they had as much to do 
with as others evidently have. How 
many would assume some public burden 
if they were not so absorbed and busy. 
How many would never have fallen into 
sin, nor have stained their souls with dis- 
honesty, impurity, and vice, fjT temptations 
had not been so strong or passions so riot- 

162 



€Ije ''^f' anb ^^Cljougl) '' of f aitft 

ous. Becky Sharp, whom we may look 
upon as the prototype of a host of men 
as well as women, was convinced that 
** it would be easy — oh, so easy — to 
be good on five thousand pounds a year/' 
Some have placed the figure higher and 
others altogether lower ; but nearly all 
of us share the great delusion or make 
some bargain with ourselves on the as- 
sumption that circumstances hold the 
secret of all virtue. With some persons 
it is temperament that has to take the 
blame ; with others it is heredity ; with 
others still it is conditions, or lack of op- 
portunity, or this thing, or that. But with 
nearly all of us there somewhere is an if. 
We have heard a great deal within 
recent years about a "living wage/* 
We have been told that we cannot ex- 
pect people to be virtuous or to hold 
their honor high when they are not paid 

163 



^ Confujfiott of CongueiSf 

for their labor enough to support them- 
selves in decency. And I would not for 
a moment claim that there is not often- 
times some reason of the sort at the root 
of not a little of the moral laxity of our 
time. But what I would rather empha- 
size is this : that virtue cannot safely or 
securely rest on any Jacob-bargain of 
this kind. *^If God will give me food to 
eat and raiment to put on, then God 
shall be my God.*' Such a vow is no 
less unsubstantial than the shifting des- 
ert sands upon which it first was made. 
Virtue is virtue, not so much when vir- 
tue pays and the bargain seems to be a 
good one, but when it cannot be seen 
that it does pay, and when it costs us 
something. Duty rises in the scale of 
value when the element of difficulty en- 
ters in and when resolution, strength, 
self-sacrifice, and courage are required, 

164 



€lje ''^i'' ann '' Cfjouglj ^^ of f ait^ 

Around the wretched ifs of life which so 
beset the pathways that we travel, around 
and high above them, rises just the one 
word though. To be generous when we 
have no great abundance and it is not 
easy to be generous ; to be patient when 
our patience is severely tried; to be 
strictly honest when just a little swerv- 
ing from the path of absolute integrity 
would seem to offer some reward ; to be 
loyal when our loyalty is tested ; to be 
lenient when we seem entirely justified 
in feeling and in being hard ; to be for- 
giving and magnanimous when injury 
and injustice have been done us ; to be 
kind when others have been cruel ; to 
be true when we have met with falsity, 
and chivalrous when others have been 
selfish; to live one's life along such lines 
as these is to lift duty high above the 
level of all elements of bargaining, and 

165 • 



^ €0nfUiBii0n of €ongue^ 

to reveal it as a law of God who builds 
his altars in the hearts of men. 

Happiness and duty : these are a large 
part of all pure and undefiled religion, 
and without them religion is a vain and 
formless thing. But beyond them lifts 
the peak to which religion, in its highest 
reaches, always must attain. Beyond 
them rises faith. And what shall we say 
of the faith that depends upon some iff 
What shall we say — ah, what need we 
say in times like these, when faith for 
nearly all of us has been so sorely tried ? 
We would believe in God, men say, if 
it were not for the fact of war. We 
would have believed in God if the world 
had gone along its well-appointed path 
of peace ; if progress had not been inter- 
rupted in this fashion ; if the counsels of 
the wise and good had not been disre- 
garded; if the nations would but arm 

166 



€I)e ^^ff^Vanb ''^l^wgfy'' of faitlj 

against iniquity and not for objects of 
aggrandizement or world-supremacy. 

And in cases where such distressing, 
world-wide conditions seem to lie outside 
consideration, the if of faith depends on 
things nearer home and much more 
personal. All of us have our individual 
sorrows, losses, trials, elements of suffer- 
ing and pain; and nothing else is ever 
half so real. The universe, for all of us, 
revolves around our little selfhoods. It is 
that which comes near to us, affects us, 
and is part of our experience, that ever 
is most real. A great thinker spoke once 
of ^^ der verdamte Ich *' — the accursed 
I — which governs all our thinking, all 
our doing, all our understanding and 
conception of life and of the progress, 
ordering and meaning of the world. I 
w^as reading but the other day a singu- 
larly frank and interesting volume of 

167 



^ Confuje^ion of €msut^ 

autobiography. It was called the Educa-- 
tion of the individual who wrote it. And 
the impression given was that the busi- 
ness of the world should have been to 
educate and develop just that special in- 
dividual. Since that end had not been 
satisfactorily attained, the world had 
clearly been at fault. Its institutions 
were inadequate and called for radical 
correction. And so in lesser ways we 
nearly all of us, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, enter into a kind of Jacob-bar- 
gain with the mighty sphere of things 
within which we live and play our little 
parts. When things go our way, and 
when world events take place in accord 
with our philosophy of progress, then 
God is our God and we find it possible 
to believe. 

But it is with faith precisely as it is 
with happiness and duty. Faith rises to 

168 



€f>e ''^f' anH ''€^nuf!fy'' of jpaitJj 

its heights only when it can say with 
fervor, " Though He slay me, yet will I 
trust Him/' Moreover, that is what it 
always has said in the past and that is 
what it is saying to-day. I look back at 
the generations and the centuries gone, 
and the great believers as they come to 
meet me are men and women who have 
suffered and have been acquainted with 
deep grief. They have a mighty though 
upon their lips, and not a feeble if. I see 
the martyrs and I see the heroes and I 
see the saints. I see them burdened to 
the earth, yet with eyes that look to 
heaven. I see them in a long procession 
going on a darkened way ; but their faces 
are alight with the thought of God. I see 
them bearing all things, and yet believ- 
ing all things; tried and yet forever 
trusting. And I find their archetype in 
the figure of the Christ upon the cross. 

169 



^ ConfUjS^ion of €onguei$ 

Nor is it different when I look at men 
and women all around me at the present 
time. Would I seek for faith — the faith 
that is strongest, deepest and most real? 
I do not go to those whose lots are easy 
and whose burdens light. I do not turn 
to the prosperous and pleasure-loving, 
to the light of heart and gay of soul. 
No : but I turn to those who have known 
the hard things or this world and who 
have fought against them ; who have suf- 
fered and endured. I turn to those who 
have come through the waters of tribu- 
lation, and have washed their garments 
in the sea of pain. 

And hence it is that out of all the sor- 
row that the world is living through at 
present I look to see a new and deeper, 
firmer faith evolve. It will be a faith that 
has seen the worst, and seen through 
it, and above it. It will be the faith of 

170 



€Jje ''^{'' anti ''€^omf^ '' of f aitfi 

the Crucified, who was lifted through 
his cross to triumph, and who dying 
prayed, ** Father, not my will but Thine 
be done/' 



€f)a)itet <tEt0l^t 



EXTRA PENNIES 



EXTRA PENNIES 



The roads in Palestine at the present 
day are none too good; but they are 
vastly better than they were two thou- 
sand years ago. In the old days all trav- 
eling was done on foot or else on mule- 
back. To-day the tourist goes from 
place to place in a comfortable carriage 
behind a pair of horses, and even motor- 
cars are not unknovm. If you are a 
stranger in Jerusalem and wish to see the 
sights, an agent of Thomas Cook and 
Son will probably persuade you to take 
the drive to Bethlehem. If you put your- 
self entirely in his hands, he will take you 
down in a party that goes by carriage to 
the Jordan, passing by the way the site 

175 



31 Confusion of Conguejaf 

of ancient Jericho. The road is not of as- 
phalt nor has it been macadamized ; but 
it is broad and safe, and the journey can 
be made in comfort. 

In New Testament times, however, 
conditions were vastly different. The road 
from Jerusalem to Jericho was hardly 
more than a bridle-path. It ran through 
rough and rugged country and was so 
beset by brigands that it bore the name 
of the " bloody road.'* Very often trav- 
elers who went that way were attacked 
and robbed : sometimes they were killed. 
None the less, the way was frequently 
used by merchants, priests, and other 
persons of importance ; for Jericho was the 
most thriving center eastward of Jerusa- 
lem. 

It was this dangerous but familiar road 
which formed a background for the most 
famous and instructive picture that the 

176 



Master ever etched. We see, as clearly 
almost as though we had witnessed the 
entire scene, the lonely traveler who was 
suddenly beset by robbers who beat him, 
stripped him of his clothes, then fled into 
the hills, leaving him half dead. And 
now, as we look and watch there, one 
by one the familiar figures come along, 
standing out clear-cut against the far 
horizon. First comes into sight a Priest. 
He sees the wounded man and mutters 
portions of the Law ; but he takes the far 
side of the road and hurries on that he 
may not be late for the Temple service. 
The next man to approach is a Levite. 
And he is filled with fear. He digs his 
heels into his mule and canters off', lest 
the robbers be not far away and return 
to catch him. And then, before the dust 
has settled on the road, our friend, the 
Good Samaritan, draws near. This is the 

177 



31 Confusion of Congucjf 

man who, the Master said, proved him- 
self a genuine neighbor and deserved to 
inherit eternal life. Let us consider for a 
moment just what it was he did, and let 
us see what his action has to teach us in. 
the matter of the conduct of life. 

As was natural enough, and simply 
human, he not only stopped and got off 
his mule and went to the wounded man, 
whom the Priest and Levite had passed 
by in fear for their precious safety; but, 
in addition, he administered "first aid'' as 
it was understood and practiced in those 
days. He applied a mixture of oil and 
wine to the cuts and bruises of the injured 
man. And then, instead of leaving him 
to shift for himself, he mounted him 
upon his own beast and, himself walking 
along the narrow, hobbly way, he got him 
at last in safety to the nearest inn. 

Nor did his care and attention end with 

178 



that. Instead of leaving him to ignorant 
or indifferent attendants, he took charge 
of the sufferer himself and in person saw 
to it that he was lodged in comfort. 
Surely now he had done the utmost that 
was possible and could go, relieved in 
mind, upon his way. But no. There was 
one thing more — a service that crowned 
the whole proceeding and lent the touch 
of genuine beauty to the ministry of 
mercy. The next morning, when it was 
time for him to go away, he did not 
simply leave a message for the man ; but 
he put his hand in his pocket, took out 
two pence and gave them to the host, 
saying, *^Take care of him: and if you 
spend anything more on his behalf, when 
I come back I will repay you.'' 

It was a little act, clearly in excess of 
what was strictly necessary. It was an 
act which many a good and generous per- 

179 



a ConfUiSfion of Congucjaf 

son never would have thought to do. But 
it made the entire ministration v^onder- 
fuUy and beautifully complete. This Good 
Samaritan did not go upon his way, joy- 
fully making his escape from an unpleas- 
ant task with the soothing thought that 
he had done what was humanly neces- 
sary, and all that could be expected. Not 
at all. He was willing to assume new obli- 
gations, self-imposed. And that little gift 
in the morning light, after all that he had 
previously done, may be accepted as an 
infallible indication of the spirit of his life 
and the nature of his mercy. It was a 
thing in excess of what simple duty had 
prescribed; it was a gift which had the 
giver in it; an act of the hand which re- 
vealed the heart to be big and generous 
and thoughtful. And what ought those 
two pence — which were worth about 
two shillings, or a half-dollar, in the 

180 



money of the times — what ought they 
to symbolize for us ? What may they sug- 
gest by way of lessons that are vital, prac- 
tical, and personal as we go about the 
duties of our daily lives ? 

There are not a few among the good 
people of the world, who live without re- 
proach and who obey the letter of the law, 
but who also live without the element of 
grace and beauty in their goodness and who 
lack the spirit which irradiates the outward 
and the purely legal letter. All of us know 
persons who are so good that we often 
wonder why they cannot be a little better. 
They are honest, let us say; but we wish 
that they were generous also. Or they are 
generous, and we wonder why they can- 
not be judicious. Or they are generous and 
judicious, and we regret that they have 
not more perseverance. Or they may 
have all these things, and yet distinctly 

181 



^ Confuitfion of CongueiS 

lack those elements of cheerful willing- 
ness and happy courtesy which so illum- 
ine and transform the life of duty. These 
are the qualities which serve, as did the 
Samaritan's two pence, to round out and 
complete and beautify the whole ; and we 
cannot but regret the fact when they are 
withheld. 

We know, for instance, how it is in 
matters of outward or material construc- 
tion. Men are building, we will say, a 
mighty arch to form some aqueduct or 
bridge. They blast the quarry ; they shape 
the stone; they haul the great blocks to 
the water's edge and lift them painfully 
into place, the one upon the other. The 
hard, mechanical, and dreary work goes 
on, unnoticed and in silence. But now, 
some unknown hand has swung the key- 
stone into place and it settles down, a per- 
fect fit, to bind the arch and give the 

182 



work completeness. And now the cheers 
break forth; now praise is gladly given. 
For the thing is finished. There is noth- 
ing lacking. The work is rounded out into 
a graceful and completed whole. Nor is it 
different with the structure that we know 
as life, or with the separate arches that 
comprise the growing and continually 
changing fabric we are at work upon each 
day. Let us look, then, with some care 
at these extra pennies. Let us consider 
how they complete and beautify a num- 
ber of the acts and deeds of everyday 
existence. 

First of all, the extra pennies symbol- 
ize the joy that should ever be the crown- 
ing element in virtue. A great many 
persons in this world are good without 
rejoicing in the laws of goodness. They 
give, but do not give with any gladness ; 
they show mercy, but show it without 

183 



^ Confusion of Congu^^ef 

cheerfulness. They love, but dissemble 
their love beneath an exterior of gruffness. 
They are active in business without being 
fervent in spirit or feeling any conscious- 
ness of serving the Lord. They weep with 
those who weep and sympathize with those 
who are sad; but they never rise to the 
height of rejoicing with those who rejoice 
— which is a distinctly harder thing. The 
Psalmist speaks, in a certain connection, of 
a man who took the statutes of the Lord and 
made them his songs throughout the days 
of his life. That is a thing which few per- 
sons ever do. All of us are in daily con- 
tact with men and women who find their 
duties a burden and who put them through 
as such; who accept the commandments 
of the Lord, but wish that conscience were 
not so exacting. And I am bound to say, 
with entire frankness, that we cannot but 
admire, in a way, the persistent toil in 

184 



€xtta ^ennit^ 

this world of those who are reluctant and 
unwilling. The service that comes hard, 
and that is done rebelliously, has some- 
thing in it that is not without appeal. 
There is a certain element of beauty, 
even, in the faithful performance of the 
man who ploughs the field all day while 
having no fondness for the life of farm- 
ing; and in the study of the man who 
holds himself to his books though all the 
time disliking study; and in the applica- 
tion of the man who attends to the de- 
tailed drudgery of business while con- 
stantly regretting that he is not able to 
do his part in another sphere than that 
of trade. All of this requires strength and 
calls for perseverance and resolution — 
qualities of a high order, indeed. 

And yet, while all of us admire acts 
and lives like these, we know full well 
that there is something higher and dis- 

185 



^ Confusion of ZmQut^ 

tinctly more noble. Lives informed by 
such a spirit are not to be compared 
with those which are eager, joyous, and 
devoted, whether in study or toil. Un- 
willing service is respectability : glad and 
willing service is nobility and puts the 
doer in a higher class. " We sometimes 
think,'' it has been said, *^that it is a 
mark of virtue to do things which we 
do not like: but how much greater a 
mark of virtue it is to like what we have 
to do.'' It is thus that stumbling-blocks 
are made into stepping-stones ; that stat- 
utes come to be songs; and that the 
consciousness of duty widens to become 
the sense of privilege. 

The difference between these attitudes 
of mind and spirit is like the difference 
we find in certain stages of a river as it 
makes its way and pushes onward toward 
the sea. There is a glory and a power 

186 



none can gainsay in the early stages of 
the stream among the hills; gathering 
strength from many sources, it tumbles 
sheer and foaming down the lofty ledges 
on the mountain side, and paints the sun- 
light into rainbows with the tumult that 
it makes. For all of that, however, there 
is a larger power and a greater beauty 
in the quiet, solemn, stately river wind- 
ing through the meadows it enriches, and 
reaching out with broadening sweep to 
meet the sea. The one stage has the 
glory of a beginning only ; the other is 
a natural end and peaceful consumma- 
tion. The one reveals the power of ef- 
fort; the other shows forth the dignity of 
fulfillment. 

And thus it is in the doing of life's 
duties. The end that we are nearing and 
should most desire is the easy and the 
glad performance of what is just and true 

187 



^ Confui^ion of Congue^ 

and pure, of what is helpful and unself- 
ish. All of us are travelers ; all of us are 
going down the familiar, well-trodden, 
yet forever dangerous road which leads 
from the Jerusalem of every birth to the 
Jericho which lies within the fruitful val- 
ley of the Jordan. Blessed, therefore, are 
the men and women in this world who 
wear no sense of effort on their brows 
as they go their various ways, intent on 
doing the little or the much of good they 
can, and who perform the duties of their 
lives with a sense of joy that has driven 
out all thought of sacrifice. Yes : the 
element of joy is as the gift of added 
pennies, making perfect and complete 
the deeds that fall to us to do as we 
journey down life's road. 

But those added pennies symbolize 
another thing: they symbolize the ele- 
ment of unwearying patience. They were 

188 



the act of a man who was not only will- 
ing to do good but to keep on doing 
good; and who, having done what he 
could, went forward on his way unmind- 
ful of reward. One of the tendencies that 
all of us have to fight against as we jour- 
ney is the tendency to become tired of 
the repetition of effort we must make, 
of the continuous output of energy along 
lines that are forever the same, and to- 
ward ends that seem never to vary. As 
life advances and the road becomes fa- 
miliar, our zest departs. We get tired 
of being resolute and cheerful ; tired of 
being merciful and generous ; tired of be- 
ing tolerant with other people and for- 
giving of their faults; tired of helping 
wounded and dejected travelers upon 
life's way. The monotony of life, and its 
drudgery, and the seeming fruitlessness 
of effort are what oftentimes oppress 

189 



91 Confusficn of Conguc^ 

people with a dreary sense of despera- 
tion almost. 

There are times or seasons in life when 
we are glad to do things or to bear things 
which are neither easy nor considered, 
for the most part, pleasant — glad to deny 
ourselves in many ways and to go with- 
out what other people have in great abun- 
dance. But when the necessity for such 
things continues, when the burden is not 
lightened nor the load removed, then it 
is that the test comes and the trial of one's 
strength is made. 

" Husband and wife,'' says a writer,^ 
" while they are young and the baby is 
still a baby, play at economy as at a 
game. . . . Out of books, out of good 
examples, out of their own hearts they 
encourage one another and quote the 
whole anthology of the praise of thrift: 

. ' Confessio Medici^ pp. 121-23. 
190 



vMy father was just as poor at my age 
as I am. My mother had to do without 
lots of things ; besides, she had such bad 
health.' ... In the profound Greek sense 
of the word, they have enthusiasm. Look 
which way they will, back, or here, or 
ahead, they see the sunshine. They find 
a sacrament in their daily bread and a 
miracle in the coming of the baby. To 
save, to wait, to scrape along, — why that 
is what they enjoy; that is the way to 
begin, the classic, heroic, historic, ro- 
mantic, practical way. . . . See them, 
this man and this woman setting out, hand 
in hand, heart in heart, into an expectant 
world. In all life there is nothing more 
delightful, more inspiriting, than the sight 
of their bow in the clouds. 

^' But suppose the clouds continue, and 
the sky keeps gray : no storm clears the 
dull air and washes the streets of life : 

191 



^ Confujefion of Conguejef 

only the sky is gray and the bow is gone. 
Slowly the sense of effort and of make- 
believe comes into their game of econ- 
omy. They begin to long to play at 
something else. Once they were proud 
of not being rich: now the most they 
can compass is to be proud of not being 
ashamed of being poor; and sometimes 
even that humble pride breaks and lies 
in the dust.'' 

What a picture that is of the weari- 
ness that comes so commonly over one 
great phase of well-doing. And I hardly 
need to add that this is only one of very 
many phases. When we look at the op- 
posite side of the shield — at the lives of 
those who have leisure and abundance of 
privilege and opportunity — we see the 
same persistent tendency at work. Even 
privilege often palls and blessings come 
to look like burdens. Parents sometimes 

192 



get tired of the perversities and peculiari- 
ties of their children. What they were 
willing to put up with and to make the 
best of when the children were young, 
they begin to fret and fume against when 
growth has been attained and discretion 
ought, they think, to have been devel- 
oped. Oh, there are countless things in 
the lives of all of us that consume us with 
the sense of weariness and fretfulness 
and distaste. The night of discourage- 
ment sets in around us and we think that 
the efforts we have made and the duties 
we have done, have come to nothing. 
The world shows hardly any signs of 
getting better. The load of poverty is 
just as heavy as it ever was. Sin and 
vice still stalk abroad. We have put our 
shoulders to the work of reform ; but so- 
ciety is just as unreformed as ever. The 
good Samaritans never were so numer- 

193 



a Confusion of Congueief 

ous ; but the wounded wayfarers seem to 
multiply as fast. Why, therefore, should 
we not just take our ease and let the 
world wag on as best it can ? 

When such thoughts as these oppress 
us, it is the lesson of the added pennies 
we need to learn. There are few things 
in this world that count for more than 
what the Great Apostle spoke of as " pa- 
tient continuance in well-doing.'' It is 
precisely when the sky seems darkest, 
and the road is roughest, that added 
strength is called for and new endeavor 
is required. To toil and then to trust — 
to trust that the toil has not been wholly 
fruitless : these two are equally our duties 
on the journey of life. We must learn to 
plough and plant, and then to leave to God 
the matter of the increase. We must do 
and never doubt that, if the deed be good 
and honest, unselfish and sincere, it will 

194 



not be completely lost in the wise econ- 
omy of God's great household. 

And finally, those extra pennies sym- 
bolize another and a higher thing. It 
will be noticed that they were not given 
directly to the suffering brother man; 
instead, they were given to the keeper 
of the inn who was depended on to ex- 
ercise protecting power. And so it is, 
or should be, in every instance. The 
final element of service which crowns 
and glorifies all that we have done, or 
tried to do, should be offered and en- 
trusted to the Host and Keeper of the 
world. We are still speaking of factors 
that bear upon the conduct of life. And 
what is conduct if not the object of re- 
ligion ? I presume we shall agree with a 
famous teacher of a former generation 
that "conduct is three fourths of life.'' 
What then is the other fourth? The 

195 



31 €onfU36fton of Conguejef 

other fourth is that which hes behind and 
reaches through and irradiates all life. It 
is the consciousness of something in this 
world higher than w^ are ourselves — a 
Higher Will which we seek to do, a 
Higher Purpose which we seek to serve. 
And when we have that conscious- 
ness, I cannot help believing that some- 
thing very beautiful and precious is added 
to the ways and modes and impulses of 
life. It is this that takes all duty and 
makes of it a thing divine. It is this that 
adds to human mercy, helpfulness, and 
kindness a heavenly element and mean- 
ing. It is this that makes and keeps us 
kindred as we go along the narrow road 
that leads from darkness into light, and 
from time into eternity. We are not 
alone; it is not our personal or private 
wills we seek to serve. But there is a 
Higher Power in this world in whom 

196 



we live and move and have our being; 
whose will we wish to serve and whose 
spirit gives us inspiration. 

When, therefore, we have done the 
utmost that we can, when we have 
sought to know and to fulfill the highest 
law of human conduct, let us make one 
added gift and let us make it to the Host 
of the mighty inn wherein we lodge. 
Let reverence and trust and awe consti- 
tute the pence we offer — a gift of those 
who ask for guidance and who pray for 
strength. 



€^apttt 0int 



THE DEPARTURE INTO EGYPT 



THE DEPARTURE INTO EGYPT 

The Christ-Child, as a child, it will be 
remembered, was borne away from the 
place of his nativity and banished to an- 
other country. According to the legend, 
Herod, the king whose name is still a 
synonym for tyranny and cruelty and 
savage lust, had designs upon the in- 
fant's life. It had been prophesied that 
here was one who would grow up to be 
a mighty spiritual monarch and to over- 
throw the rulers of the earth. Messiah, 
or the Christ, according to the prophe- 
cies, would some day rule alone, having 
subdued all kingdoms to himself. And 
now — so Herod was informed — the 
Messiah had been born. His star had 

201 



^ €onfu$sion of €on0uejer 

appeared in the East and wise men had 
arrived to do him honor. 

It was in self-defense, accordingly, 
that Herod sought to take the child's 
life. And with such intent he charged 
the Magi to return when they had found 
him and reveal the place where he was 
laid. But Joseph, according to the story, 
was warned of the danger in a dream. 
He was told to make his way immediately 
into Egypt. And he did so. He arose 
and took the young child and his mother, 
by night, and departed into the distant 
land watered by the Nile. 

How the story of that famous flight 
arose, we need not now consider. Neither 
need we take the trouble to investigate 
the probabilities of its accuracy. It is 
enough for our present purpose to recall 
the incident. It has been made familiar 
by the pictures that artists have so often 

Q02 



€l^e 2Departure into €Qppt 

painted : a man and woman, a litde child 
between them, making their way across 
the broad and thirsty desert into Egypt. 

Into Egypt ! And what was Egypt at 
that time? What had it been for many 
centuries in the eyes of the faithful He- 
brew ? Why, Egypt was the land of idol- 
atry and darkness ; of luxury and license. 
It was the center of superstition and gross 
ignorance, and of mere material might 
and wealth. It was the land from which 
the older generation had escaped, thereby 
finding deliverance into a higher life and 
the moral law. Yet, into this land of 
darkness and of death the Christ-Child, 
as a child, was banished. He was borne 
away from the people and the land where 
he belonged: for his own received him 
and believed him not. 

That history is fond of repeating it- 
self, we all know well. We know too — 

203 



a Confusion of Ztmgm^ 

though it is not pleasant to confess it — 
that more than once the Christ-Child has 
departed into exile, being banished and 
his life endangered by his own. Indeed, 
say what we will and argue as we please, 
the Christian spirit, after more than nine- 
teen hundred years, remains even to-day 
but a helpless little child. And now, once 
again banished from his own, the Child 
has departed into Egypt. 

It is a happy and instructive thing that 
here in New England a certain two fes- 
tivals come together every year. At the 
moment when the Christmas bells are 
just beginning to ring, and the Christ- 
mas anthems first are heard, we in New 
England are encouraged to take thought 
of our forefathers and the things for which 
they stood. And for two years past this 
conjunction of events has had in it much 
of profit, as it seems to me ; it has been 

204 



€1^0 2Departure into ^^ppt 

particularly well worth our while, I think, 
to recall the attitude of the Puritans to- 
ward Christmas. They banished all fes- 
tivities and gayety. Green boughs and 
the lighted tree were forbidden. For, in 
1644 the Long Parliament had ordered 
that the twenty-fifth of December should 
be strictly observed thereafter as a fast, 
and that all men should pass the day in 
humbly acknowledging the great sins of 
the nation. Since this War broke out, I 
confess that I have called to mind this 
legislation of the Puritans with a certain 
sort of sympathy. It has seemed to me 
that the Christian nations might well 
enough again give orders that Christmas 
Day should be celebrated as a fast, and 
that all men should be called upon to 
acknowledge the sins that the nations 
have committed in banishing from their 
midst the Christ-Child. 

205 



^ ConfujGfion of Congue^sf 

A hundred years from now — yes, a 
thousand years from now — people will 
be writing about and reading about and 
studying still this great world-crisis of 
which we all, in some sense, are a part. 
Just as we to-day read about the decline 
and fall of the Roman Empire and the 
Mussulman invasion and the great Cru- 
sades, so, in those far-off future days, 
historians and philosophers and moralists 
will be studying this phase of social ca- 
tastrophe which we are passing through. 
What they will say about it, no one pos- 
sibly can tell. What their judgment fin- 
ally will be, none of us can know. 

But of this fact we can be reasonably 
sure : something will be said about the 
failure of religion. Without doubt, some 
reference will be made to the fact that 
those nations which claimed to be follow- 
ers of the Prince of Peace were the ones 

206 



€I)e 2Departure into €0ppt 

that went to war ; and that the people 
who had quoted approvingly the Proph- 
et's words of a time to come when spears 
would be beaten into pruning-hooks and 
swords into ploughshares, were found to 
be acting under the influence of very dif- 
ferent motives. For lo, every great dis- 
covery of science, and each wonderful 
invention in the arts, had been debased to 
the awful objects of destruction, suffering, 
and death. 

And yet it is possible, if not to exag- 
gerate all this, at least to misplace the 
emphasis and to fail to read aright the 
signs. In the first place, we cannot too 
frequently be reminded of the fact that 
it is not Christianity that is on trial at the 
present time; but men and women in 
their attitude toward Christianity. It is 
not the Christ-Child who has failed; but 
the unworthy followers of the Child, who 

.207 



a Confujtfiott of ConguciS 

have seen Him borne off into Egypt. The 
Christian spirit has not proved itself mis- 
taken; the mistake hes with those who 
should have been — but were not — the 
embodiments of that spirit. The failure, 
if failure there has been, has been a fail- 
ure of self-styled Christian people; not 
of the Christian faith. Here is a religion 
whose very essence is spirit: and men 
have made of it a body of doctrines. It 
was meant to be a point of view : and the 
Church has distorted it into a set of views. 
It is a way of living : and it has come to 
be interpreted as a way of looking upon 
life. What we need to realize, therefore, 
at the present time, is distinctly this: 
there has been something radically v^ong, 
not with Christianity, but with our way 
of interpreting Christianity. 

We have seemed to think that we 
could have a Christian civilization with- 

208 



€]^e Departure into <6gp})t 

out the Christian spirit at the heart of it 
as the guiding and controlling power. 
We have imagined that science and art 
and education and commerce were the 
forces out of which real progress could 
evolve. Power, we have thought, must 
be power for good, and wealth appeared 
a blessing in itself. And now the nations 
of the older world have seen the hollow- 
ness of what they called their civilization. 
They have seen that selfishness was the 
thing which they had built upon, and 
that their Christianity was a matter only 
of the surface things of life. If, there- 
fore, the new age is to be an improve- 
ment upon the old, there must be a new 
beginning, and a beginning from, the 
bottom. If the form is to be different, 
then the spirit that controls the form 
must be different. If genuine progress 
is to come^ that kind of life must be 

209 



^ Confusion of Congueisr 

secured which alone can guarantee the 
progress. 

It is, I take it, one of the advantages 
of great catastrophes and crises that they 
teach us where we are and what is wrong. 
They open our eyes to solemn facts and 
help us to realize wherein we have taken 
a false course. In this way a new begin- 
ning becomes possible and a different line 
of advance may be entered upon. For 
some years past we have been accus- 
tomed to emphasize, at the Christmas 
season, the great conviction that the 
world is steadily growing better. We 
have seen signs, and have pointed to 
them, indicative of an increasing human- 
ity and fellowship and friendship among 
the peoples of all nations. Two years 
ago, three years ago, — in fact for gen- 
erations past, — we should all have been 
agreed that "in the nineteen centuries 

210 



€^t 2Departure into ^gpjit 

which have elapsed since the star of 
Bethlehem shone above the manger of 
the Prince of Peace, there has been a 
steady approach toward the ideals which 
the Christian religion brought to human- 
ity/' The world, we knew, had fallen 
pitiably short of attainment; but at least 
it was now approaching the goal. The 
growth, to be sure, had been slow and 
painful; but at least some measure of 
growth was actually taking place. The 
Child, we said year after year, the Child 
of the Christmas promise was "increas- 
ing in wisdom and stature, and in favor 
with God and man/' 

But now, it seems, we cannot say that 
sort of thing. The Child has been taken 
into Egypt. Men have shovm themselves 
quite as cruel as they were in the time 
of Herod; nations have proved them- 
selves quite as warlike ; and civilization 

211 



^ Confu^Siott of €on0UC3Bf 

seems no more than a veneer. We all 
have been the victims of a great delu- 
sion ; for now the hands on the clock of 
human advancement have been set back 
and, instead of pointing nearer and nearer 
to the high noon of achievement, they 
present such an aspect as convinces us 
that the kingdom of heaven never was 
so far away. 

In this respect, however, it is probable 
that we are grievously, although very 
naturally, mistaken. It may be — I my- 
self should not be surprised if it were 
true — that not for many a year has there 
been such good reason as there is just now 
for putting confidence in human prog- 
ress and achievement. Recently, alas, 
improvement has not come ; but it is no 
less certain that, in countless periods in 
the past, improvement has taken place. 
And it is probable that, even now, we 

212 



Z^c aDeparture into €gp}it 

are on the very eve of a marvelous new 
birth. Humanity is still unredeemed ; but 
there is good reason to believe that when 
this War is over — this War which the 
great mass of the people had no hand in 
bringing about, and would have stopped, 
could they have done so — we shall find 
the people of the world a chastened, pur- 
ified, exalted and more religious people. 
They will have learned their lesson — 
an awful lesson, to be sure ; but still, they 
will have learned it and they will be the 
better for it. 

Do you remember how the early 
Christians in Imperial Rome were forced 
to celebrate their Christmas ? Hated and 
persecuted, their only places of safety 
and of refuge were underneath the 
ground, far out of sight. In the cata- 
combs, beneath the pagan tombs on the 
Appian Way, places which tourists visit 

213 



91 Confusion of CongueiBf 

now with weird and idle wonder, they 
met to celebrate the birth of Christ. In 
those dismal regions, where smoking 
torches only in part lighted up the fetid 
darkness, they told again the wondrous 
story. And one old man among them, 
so we read, an old man who had been 
hunted by the Romans and condemned 
to death, was bold enough to proclaim, 
there in the darkness, the glorious future 
of the Christian faith. "This roof,'' he 
said, his countenance gleaming as he 
pointed to the damp and solid earth above 
him, — "this roof hides the stars; but 
they are shining still. And so shall the 
light of our religion glow among the 
hosts of the righteous who are to appear 
through all the ages. The star of Beth- 
lehem will never set.'* 

It appears to me that we to-day are in 
a position somewhat similar to that of the 

214 



€Jje 2Departurc into €gppt 

early Christians, and that their word of 
prophecy is the very word that many 
of us need to take to heart at this dark- 
ened season. Especially is this word 
helpful for those of us who have steered 
our course by the stars of human prog- 
ress. Those stars cannot be seen at the 
present moment. But they have not set. 
They are, believe me, just above our roof 
of earth. The clouds of war are sweep- 
ing past and hiding them; but they will 
shine out again, in due time. 

Many of us — most of us, probably 
— think of progress and improvement 
as a steady, cumulative, and continuous 
process which goes on automatically, and 
all the time, even though we may not 
see it; which halts for a moment upon 
hesitating feet, but is never really, or 
very seriously, interrupted. But that is 
an obviously mistaken inference for which 

215 



^ ConfuiSion of €onguesf 

history gives no warrant. Progress, as 
Professor Lake has recently pointed out, 
is a matter of catastrophe and recovery 
from catastrophe; of long intervals of 
growth and then a sudden fall from which 
men rise again with a clearer under- 
standing of their errors and their duties. 
It always has been so : probably it always 
will be so. There is sunshine and then 
shadow ; gain which is followed by loss ; 
and then gain once more. It is destruc- 
tion making way for new fulfillment ; ruin 
followed by recovery ; crucifixion leading 
on to resurrection. For the race is like 
the individual. It " falls to rise, is baffled 
to fight better, sleeps to wake.'* 

There is ground, then, as well as room 
for hope in these days of deep darkness. 
The young Child was taken away into 
Egypt all those years ago — but why? 
Not that He might be lost; but rather 

216 



€l)e aDeparture into ^gppt 

that He might be saved. He came again 
unto His own, to increase in wisdom 
and stature, and in favor wdth God and 
man. And that, doubtless, is the way 
it is destined once again to be. Every 
generation has, and must have, its own 
form of Christianity. For Christianity is 
shaped and influenced by every advance 
in knowledge as well as by every failure 
and calamity of life. In the same way, 
as some one has said, "Christ becomes 
the creation of each fresh generation: 
for each generation creates the world in 
which it lives." The generations of the 
past have had many and very different 
Christs. They have had Christ as God, 
and Christ as man. They have had 
the suffering Christ, and the sorrowing 
Christ, and the sentimental Christ. And 
in like manner the age that now is dawn- 
ing will have its Christ — the Christ 

217 



91 ConfuiBfion of €ongue^ 

brought back from the Egypt of to-day. 
And I incline to think that He will be a 
social Christ. When this War is over and 
He begins to reextend his sway. He will 
grow and find new increase along social 
lines. That is to say, we shall come to 
think of Him as teaching justice quite as 
much as mercy, and the rightful use of 
worldly power as well as simple purity 
of heart. We shall then see — for the 
social, serving Christ will make clear to 
us — that, to have a Christian civilization 
which is more than a merely surface 
matter, we must have a new relationship 
of man with man, of neighbor with neigh- 
bor, of one class with another, of em- 
ployer with employed, of capital with 
labor, of rich with poor, of nation with 
nation, and of one race with another. We 
must build, if we are to build with secu- 
rity and power, on something less su- 

218 



€J)e SDqparture into (JEgpjJt 

perficial than science, less selfish than 
commerce, and truer than mere trade. 
We must build on the principle of genu- 
ine humanity and the essential kinship 
of the race. 

This is " the Christ that is to be '* which 
the muffled, mournful bells of war are 
ringing in. This is the Christ which, it 
is my conviction, will return when the 
soldiers leave at last the trenches and the 
thunder of the guns has ceased. 

What we want and wait for in the age 
to come is not more Christians, but truer 
Christians; not merely more religion, 
but more real religion. Most of us, in 
these painful days, are having to recon- 
struct our faith unless we wish to lose 
our faith. The old props are, many of 
them, gone. We cannot think again of 
human nature exactly as we did ; we can- 
not think of God precisely as we did; 

219 



a ConfUiSEion of Congueiaf 

nor even of the world we live in just as 
we used to do. To have the same faith 
we must have deeper faith ; to trust at all, 
and to believe in goodness, we must have 
more ample grounds for confidence than 
those which hitherto have seemed suffi- 
cient. 

And all of this is coming. Out of the 
present darkness, if we live, we shall pass 
on to a day when we shall celebrate a 
truer and completer Christmas. Perhaps 
— who knows? — in the years to come 
we may revert to the legend and the les- 
son of that first and glorious Christmas 
morning when kings and wise men came 
and offered gifts. And, reverting to that 
lesson, we shall remember that they did 
not offer their gifts to one another: they 
presented them to Christ. 

Suppose that we should learn to make 
such gifts as that. Suppose we should 

220 



€Jje 2Departure into ^gppt 

determine to make the Christmas season 
what our forefathers desired it to be — a 
season of deepened faith and not of mere 
festivities; a season of spiritual life and 
not of so much levity. Suppose each year 
w^e should kneel before the symbol of 
that Eastern cradle and, taking the most 
precious things v^e have, — taking time 
and thought and energy and wealth and 
life itself, — we should lay them at the 
feet of human needs and hopes and high 
desires. That, it seems to me, would be 
to celebrate a new birth of the Christ- 
Spirit, to witness the return of the Child. 
When that happens, we ourselves shall 
be both kings and wise men, and the 
star of hope will shine before us as we 
make our way across the desert places 
of the world. And then at last, not angels 
unseen in the sky, but men and women 
as they go about their daily work, will 

221 



^ Confuitfion of Congucjsf 

be heard to sing the song of peace on 
earth, good- will to men; and the song 
will tell not of promise only, but of ful- 
fillment. 



CfjajJtet €en 



UNSHAKEN THINGS 



UNSHAKEN THINGS 



One of the most disturbing and de- 
pressing features in the present world- 
convulsion is the element of grave un- 
certainty v^hich has been introduced 
into human life. The old and familiar 
order has been forcibly upset and far- 
reaching changes are inevitable. For the 
moment confusion reigns. The v^orld- 
adjustment has been overthrov^ni. Ac- 
cepted standards of international conduct 
have been openly despised. Dreams of 
human development have been dethroned 
and trampled in the mud of unloosed 
lust and passions that dehumanize. Ideals 
have been shattered. Human confidence 
has been shaken to its depths. Christi- 

225 



91 Cottfujfion of €on0ueief 

anity has openly been challenged. Re- 
ligious faith has been made a hideous 
mockery. At such a time, when confu- 
sion and uncertainty prevail, it is the part 
of wisdom to take thought of such forces 
as are permanent and unshaken, — un- 
seen, perhaps, and yet, in the midst of 
widespread chaos, proceeding patiently 
along their appointed paths. 

Some century and a half ago a famous 
scene was enacted in our colonial his- 
tory. A sudden "Dark Day," it will be 
recalled, settled down upon New Eng- 
land. The Provincial Assembly was in 
session, discussing the great question of 
constitutional government; when lo, at 
midday, darkness began to fall. It was 
all that men could do to see each other's 
faces. Even the hearts of those stout 
old Puritans stood still in fear and dumb 
amazement. "It is the Day of Judg- 

226 



ment/' some called out. Others cried, 
<<The end has come/' 

Then one of the Fathers stood up in 
his place. "Whether it be the Judg- 
ment Day, or no, I know not,'' he said; 
"but this I do know: it is God's will we 
save our country and we shall be judged 
accordingly. I move that the candles be 
lit and that w^e go on with our busi- 



ness." 



In like manner it is for us to-day to 
light the candles of faith and hope and 
reason, and to go on with our business. 
And our business, as it seems to me, is 
this : amid the waste and welter of this 
War, while the surface of society is so 
confused, to lay hold upon the deeply 
human things, and to rest upon those 
mighty spiritual forces which still abide 
in undiminished strength. " For this 
word," it is written in the Epistle to the 

327 



at ConfUitfion of ConguejBf 

Hebrews, " yet once more signifieth the 
removing of those things that are shaken, 
as of things that are made, that those 
things which cannot be shaken may 



remain/' 



The things which cannot be shaken — 
those are the things that people love. 
The things which cannot be shaken — 
those are the things for which people 
hunger and thirst. The things which 
cannot be shaken — those are the things 
out of which a new order is builded, 
upon the ruins of an old ; by means of 
which right triumphs over wrong, good- 
ness does away with evil, and life is 
victor over death. 

In the interests of peace, therefore, 
when it shall have been reached ; in the 
interests of social progress, when it once 
again shall have been resumed ; in the 
interests of faith, while there is so much 

228 



to encourage doubt ; in the interests of 
the Church whose teachings seemingly 
have become of small avail; in the in- 
terests of each and all these causes, v^e 
may think together of those things which, 
like the Word of God, remain unshaken. 
For though ^*the grass withereth and 
the flower fadeth, the Word of our God 
shall stand forever/' 

And a first such thing that I would 
name for spiritual comfort, and to re- 
store spiritual confidence, and to estab- 
lish spiritual guidance, is that thing which 
has suffered greatest outrage; which, 
because it was neglected, or unrecog- 
nized, in former modes of government, 
has brought to pass this present world 
disaster; but which, none the less, can- 
not be permanently shaken. It is the 
fact of human kinship — the conscious- 
ness of a tie that binds the peoples of all 

229 



a Confujfion of Congue^Bf 

the world together, however they may 
have come to be divided, wrenched apart, 
and separated by the fact of strife. You 
cannot conquer, you cannot permanently 
do away with the sense of world-wide 
kinship, with the consciousness of a com- 
munity of hopes and fears, of longings 
and endeavors, of faiths and aspirations, 
in which all peoples are as one. Human 
beings — when the worst and saddest 
has been said about them, when their 
sins have all been recognized and their 
multiform shortcomings have frankly and 
fully been confessed — human beings are 
intensely human. They are one at heart 
even when hand is lifted against hand. 
They are one in destiny, however much 
destructive forces may for a time divide 
them. 

You may recall, for instance, a story 
that is told of our Civil War : how, on 

230 



one occasion, the two hostile forces lay 
entrenched against each other with just a 
narrow river flowing in between. Shots 
were frequently exchanged and threats 
were hurled from side to side. At the 
close of the day, when the night shut in, 
it was the habit of the soldiers to lift up 
their voices in the respective songs that 
had come to give expression to their 
rival causes ; and always they strove to 
drown out one another's music. One 
night, however, beneath the benediction 
of the placid stars that shone in the 
southern sky, as the opposing camps lay 
in heavy stillness, suddenly a soldier on 
the Union side began to sing with l)nric 
tenor voice the sweet, familiar strains of 
"Home, Sweet Home/' He sang for 
a time alone, his voice softened by sup- 
pressed emotion. Little by little, how- 
ever, the words were taken up by com- 

231 



^ Confusion of CongueiS 

rades, then by those across the stream, 
till finally the two opposing armies were 
united in a mighty chorus, chanting to- 
gether the words that made them one in 
longing and in sentiment, one in deeply 
human feelings and desires. 

And so to-day, on the bruised and mu- 
tilated face of Europe, where hordes of 
men have clinched and sway together 
in the fierce embrace of death, there are, 
even now, more and deeper things which 
unite the warring millions and the hos- 
tile nations than there are, or ever can 
be, things that divide them. They fight, 
indeed, for their respective flags which 
call forth passionate devotion and com- 
mand a loyalty which sets their hearts 
aflame with eagerness to do and dare the 
utmost. But there is one flag flying in 
their midst, wherever need arises and suf- 
fering is felt — there is one flag which 

232 



claims allegiance from them all. It shows 
no national device. Upon a spotless field 
of white, it bears a simple cross of red — 
the symbol of humanity. Here is a flag 
that does not divide men : it unites them. 

I believe, therefore, that when this 
War is over, this great unshaken fact of 
human kinship is destined to assert itself 
and claim such rights of recognition as 
never before have been accorded it. In 
large part unembodied hitherto, I believe 
that this spirit will secure for itself, at 
last, some organism which shall mean a 
federated world — a United States of 
Europe, or of Christendom. That dream 
is not a new one although we often think 
of it as the product of our ov^n genera- 
tion. It is a century old at least. 

One hundred years ago, after Napo- 
leon, the disturber of the world, had been 
beaten into exile, the great Congress of 

233 



31 ConfuiSion of ConguciS 

Vienna was assembled to arrange a peace. 
The times were such as we may well 
suppose they will be once again when at 
length the horrors of this present situa- 
tion shall have passed away. Represen- 
tatives of the various nations came to- 
gether, seeking to settle their disputes. 
Their prime object was to arrive at terms 
of peace. And yet, what they talked 
about was not a temporary truce — a 
mere mechanical adjustment of long- 
standing difficulties. No, not that : those 
men, one hundred years ago, so soon as 
they had come together, began to talk 
about a <* Federated Europe,'' and how 
they might proceed to constitute a "Su- 
preme International Tribunal.'' The Em- 
peror of Russia, inspired by a sublime 
idealism, suggested to the Congress that 
a Holy Alliance should be formed in 
Europe, to rule according to the sacred 

234 



principles of Christianity. There was to 
be a ** Council of Great Powers, endowed 
with the influence, and almost the sim- 
plicity, of a single independent State/* 

Diplomats were amazed at the un- 
worldly scheme. They called it non- 
sense. But the influence of the Emperor 
Alexander, who was fired with the high 
desire to become a '' Napoleon of Peace/' 
at length prevailed. Nearly all the na- 
tions of Europe actually entered into a 
solemn compact and signed a form of 
treaty, in accord with the terms of which 
they declared themselves *^ united by the 
bonds of a true fraternity, pledged to 
lend aid to each other." Their sole prin- 
ciple of conduct was stated to be a desire 
** to render mutual service, and to testify 
by increasing good- will the mutual affec- 
tion with which they should be ani- 
mated.'' 

^35 



^ Confuitfion of €tmsat^ 

And thus the scheme went into opera- 
tion. For a number of years this Holy 
Alliance, whose object was international 
good- will and peace, remained the domi- 
nant fact in the affairs of Europe. Fur- 
ther congresses were held ini8i8, 1819, 
1820, and 1822. Then the Alliance 
ceased to operate. A Federation of the 
Powers could not be accomplished, it 
seemed. And why ? Let me remind you 
why — since the situation has a lesson 
for the present day. It was because that 
congress was a congress of monarchs 
and their representatives only. In it the 
people had no voice. It was a "Royal 
Trust'' — a "Holding Company'' of 
hereditary rulers who hoped, through 
combination, to resist the revolutionary 
movements of the people. The Holy 
Alliance of one hundred years ago, and 
the scheme for a United States of Eu- 

236 



rope, left the actual rulers out of the ac- 
count. Those rulers are evermore the 
people: and the people, fundamentally, 
are one. 

A century now has passed and that 
dream of a Federated World has dawned 
again. Brighter than before, it forms the 
bow of promise on the storm-clouds of 
the world. But if the dream is to come 
to anything, it will be through recog- 
nition of the abiding ties of human kin- 
ship, which bind the peoples, not alone 
the rulers, of the nations into one. Auto- 
cracies — not peoples — have "got the 
world into its present fearful mess.'* 
And when the world emerges, the peo- 
ple must make an end forever of auto- 
cracies. A new world-order is in process 
of gestation; and when pride of race 
gives way to consciousness of kind, and 
the sense of human kinship takes pos- 

237 



31 Cottfujfiott 0f CongueiBf 

session of the world, that order will be 
established. 

However, this sense of kinship is not 
the only element that has abiding power. 
Amid the world's uncertainties, its causes 
for anxiety, confusion, sorrow, and dis- 
may, I see another thing that cannot 
possibly be shaken. Bright and clear it 
shines out through the smoke of battle 
and across the tumult of engulfing wa- 
ters ; warm and vitalizing it lends a sacred 
luster to the stretcher of the ambulance 
and the cots and corridors of countless 
hospitals. It is the steadfast, striking, 
hallowing, consoling fact of human cour- 
age; the loyal, self-sacrificing willing- 
ness to count life but as something to be 
laid down and devoted to a great and all- 
compelling need. It is not displayed on 
one side more than on another. It is 
neither French nor German, British nor 

2^38 



conspicuously Belgian, It is simply and 
completely human. What men have to 
do, they bravely do; v^hat they have to 
bear is borne with courage and unflinch- 
ing, undismayed endurance. It always 
has been so : it is so to-day. The weak 
display extraordinary strength; the fal- 
tering surprise themselves and others by 
their firmness; the laggards lay down 
their lives with no counting of the cost; 
while the sinful and the fallen stand up 
pure and holy to be counted in the bright 
array of heroes. It may be, indeed, that 
we shall think less well of mankind than 
we used, because this War has come to 
pass ; but, because of it, we shall think 
much better than we did of individual 
men and women. For we have come to 
see the stuff that often lies unused in 
human nature — the gold that only waits 
for the refiner's touch to separate it from 

23i9 



a Confuitfiott of CongucjBf 

the base alloy of selfishness and weak 
indulgence. 

When this War is over and has passed 
into the sad records of history, it will have 
— in spite of its inhumanities, atrocities, 
and cruelties — it will have a tale to tell 
of bravery and endurance, of calm taking 
of great risks on earth, in air, upon the 
sea, and underneath the dark and threat- 
ening waters, such as never before has 
been heard. Upon such sacrifices as are 
being made at present, God Himself 
must throw the incense of approval. Per- 
haps in the years to come, because of 
what the world is nobly bearing up be- 
neath to-day, people will be more pa- 
tient underneath mere light afflictions; 
"quicker to put things eternal before 
things temporal; more simple in their 
ways ; more moderate in their pleasures ; 
more willing to look calmly on the face 

240 



of death ; more conscious of God's pres- 
ence in the time of peace/' 

And yet, while all of this is something 
to rejoice in and to lend us confidence 
and comfort, it is likewise something that 
may well cause us shame. For what have 
we all been doing ? What has the Church 
been thinking of? Why has not religion 
used for higher ends these latent, unem- 
ployed reserves of human effort and en- 
ergy? Is it king and country only that 
can call men to put forth their utmost 
powers ; and not also God and kind ? Are 
we strong only when it comes to kill and 
conquer, and not equally courageous when 
it comes to serve and bless ? These noble 
qualities of man- and womanhood, these 
capacities for holy service, these energies 
that waited for the call of war to leap full- 
armed before the world — shall they not 
some time be enlisted to redeem the world 

241 



at ConfUiEfiott of Congue^ 

from error and to crown it with content ? 
When rehgion shall have learned the 
secret underlying patriotism, and the 
Church commands what is given gladly 
to the State, then the kingdom of God 
will no longer be a golden dream, nor 
laborers be lacking for the harvest. When 
the Children of the Light shall have learned 
to marshal unused human forces as effec- 
tively and well as do the Children of the 
World, then will great hosts of youthful 
and courageous men and women go forth 
to overthrow the factors of unrighteous- 
ness, and the promises of God will be the 
performances of man. 

But let us look still further and a little 
higher in our search for elements of life 
that have abiding power. The qualities 
that I have spoken of would be compara- 
tively unimportant, they would lack con- 
structive and incentive power, were it not 

242 



that a third conspicuous thing remains 
unshaken — not to be swept away, up- 
rooted, or destroyed. It is our confidence 
in the future : our hope and faith and deep 
conviction that a new and better order will 
replace the old; that darkness will give 
way to light, wrong to rectitude, and error 
to the truth. Man is an ideal-building, a 
vision-seeing, a dream-constructing crea- 
ture. Explain it as you will and account 
for it as you may, the fact remains that 
you cannot crush, you cannot kill, you 
cannot drive from out the heart and mind 
and conscience of the human race the hope 
for more ideal conditions; the conviction 
that a brighter, better, holier state of so- 
ciety can somehow, some time, be con- 
structed. Man feels it, for God has dow- 
ered him with certain instincts and desires : 
man sees it, for God has given him the 
capacity to look beyond the present and 

243 



^ ConfUitfion of €on0ueiflf 

to see above the threatening and the all- 
obscuring clouds : man knows it, for God 
has crowned his powers with reason, in- 
telligence, and insight. You may shake 
the world into confusion ; but man rises 
up and constructs a new world for him- 
self. You may rend the heavens and dis- 
solve the earth into fire-mist, the smoke 
of cannon or of poisonous gases ; but man 
straightway sees a new heaven, and per- 
ceives a better earth where the fire of 
love is burning and the smoke of incense 
rises from chastened hearts and burdened 
souls that kneel before the altars of a 
truer and a juster dispensation. 

When all else fails or has been badly 
shaken — when wealth is wasted, plans 
are worsted, institutions have been over- 
turned and governments upset, with sci- 
ence grievously suborned to dealing death 
and devising methods of destruction — 

244 



even then there abideth, still unshaken, 
faith — faith in man and his capacity, 
with God's ready and unfailing aid, to 
succeed and to triumph: there abideth 
hope, whose light can never be extin- 
guished — hope of a better and a happier 
time to come : there abideth love, the 
greatest and the most enduring of them 
all. 

Hence it happened that, no sooner 
was this War declared than busy, earnest, 
deep-souled thinkers in nearly all — yes, 
in literally all — the warring nations and 
the neutral countries set themselves to 
work and said : " We must marshal all 
our forces, put machinery in motion and 
mature plans for making such things in 
the days to come impossible/' The cry 
was raised at once, and found its way 
around the world, that this was ^^a war 
for the putting down of war/' Before a 

245 



9L Confui^ion of Conguc^ 

single shot had been fired, while troops 
were even yet in course of rushing to 
their places, members of parliament, col- 
lege presidents, earnest reformers, so- 
cialists, and men of science were saying 
earnestly to one another : " Now is the 
time to begin a new campaign, to edu- 
cate opinion and to organize all available 
human agencies for a lasting peace. Now 
is the time to shape the future, to set in 
motion factors and forces that will do 
away at last with the insensate policies 
and programmes which have brought 
the world to this disgraceful pass/* 

And that is the work which is going 
on to-day. The candles have been lighted 
and the Father's business has eagerly 
been taken up. It is being organized 
anew, not in America alone, but nearly 
everywhere ; not merely on the parts of 
professional scheme-makers and avowed 

246 



peace advocates, but quietly, earnestly, 
hopefully, in countless bleeding hearts 
and in lonely widowed homes; in the 
cabinets of kings and in councils of the 
common people; in "unions'' every- 
where, whether of labor or of love ; not 
only on the part of men, but earnestly 
abetted now by women. 

Some one has suggested that the task 
of the century but recently closed was, in 
large part, a mechanical task — a task of 
invention, discovery, and adaptation. It 
was well and nobly and even dramatically 
performed by engineers and promoters 
and men of organizing genius. It led to 
the practical bridging of the ocean ; to the 
conquest of the air ; to the hollowing of 
the mountains ; to the harnessing of mighty 
rivers that the power they contain might 
be transformed and then transferred to 
busy factories and quiet homes. Yes, and 

247 



a Confusion of ConguejS 

finally, — the greatest by far of all such 
things, — it led to the opening of that 
impressive channel by means of which 
the East and West have come to be 
united. All of this — and how much more 
— has been splendidly and hopefully ac- 
complished. 

But it remains for us to do something 
different and something higher yet. The 
task which they of the past accomplished 
was a task of mechanical engineering: 
ours is a task of social readjustment. It 
was for them to seek out and develop 
natural forces : it is for us to regulate and 
harmonize human forces. They devised 
and constructed mechanical appliances for 
vastly increasing human power: it is for 
us to contrive that this power shall be 
used for higher ends — for life and not 
for death, for the common human good 
and not for selfish, inhuman conquest. 

248 



To bring such things about is a matter 
of ethical engineering. It will require a 
widespread development of justice, for- 
bearance, and mutual good- will, leading 
on to radical social readjustment. Never- 
theless, it will be accomplished. This will 
all come to pass, I believe, and at a time 
not too far distant. And when the new 
order shall have been achieved, it v^ be 
seen to rest upon those unshaken ele- 
ments in human life of which I have been 
speaking. 

What are we that we should weakly 
and dishonorably cry that such things 
cannot be accomplished? What are we 
that we should grovel in the dust and say 
that what has always been always must 
be? If as a race we have learned to move 
erect as men and, in consequence, no 
longer move as do the animals, shall we 
not likewise learn, in time, to live as men 

£49 



^ Confuisston of Conguciee 

who are members of one human family? 
If we have outgrown cannibahsm, abol- 
ished slavery, put down dueling and 
swept away polygamy, is it not probable 
that sometime we shall grow ashamed 
of war? To doubt it would be less than 
human : to deny it would imply denial of 
our faith. After all, it is simply a ques- 
tion of the management of our affairs ; 
and right management merely means an 
application of the simplest Christian prin- 
ciples. 

Some one has said that " if the so-called 
Christian nations were nations of Chris- 
tians there would be no war/' But that, 
alas, is only partly true. We have nations 
of Christians at the present time : but the 
Christian nation is still waiting to be born. 
Our trouble is that the Christian religion 
has always been too much an individual 
matter and not enough a matter of the 

250 



social order. We have thought of it as 
giving rules and presenting high ideals 
for neighbors in their intercourse with 
each other, for the rich in their relations 
w^ith the poor, and for the strong in their 
obligations toward the weak. We have 
only just recently begun to think of it as 
containing guidance for governments in 
their dealings with each other and for 
nations in the settlement of their disputes. 
But until a place shall be prepared in the 
inn of government and statecraft — some 
lowly manger where the spirit of the 
Christ may be born — the hopes and 
dreams of individual men and women 
may, at any moment, be overborne, and 
those principles for which they stand be 
brought to quick defeat. There is a sense 
in which a Christian nation is absolutely 
necessary if we would make possible a 
nation of Christians. For all of us, inevit- 

251 



31 ConfujBiion of Conguejaf 

ably and incessantly, and oftentimes un- 
consciously, are influenced and guided, 
shaped and moulded by the system, or the 
group-idea, of which we find ourselves a 
part. "A Commonwealth,'* wrote Mil- 
ton, years ago when times were dark and 
strife was general, — "a Commonwealth 
ought to be but as one huge Christian 
personage — one mighty growth and stat- 
ure of an honest man, as big and compact 
in virtue as in body/' And a modem 
prophet well has said,' "The whole cre- 
ation of government groaneth and trav- 
aileth in pain until now, waiting for the 
manifestation of the Christian life in the 
modern state/' 

And so in dark days and in clear, 
through war and in peace, with a world 
in conflict or in concord, whether doubt- 

^ F. G. Peabody, The Christian Life in the Mod* 
em Worlds p. 193, 

252 



ing or believing, whether in trial or in 
triumph, both while suffering and while 
serving, alike when working and when 
at worship, let us hold fast to the things 
that cannot possibly be shaken. What- 
ever comes or goes, is lost or found, the 
fact of human kinship cannot be de- 
stroyed; nor can the ties that bind us 
into one great family be severed. Above 
the clouds, shine bright and clear the 
qualities of courage, great endurance, 
and the eager willingness to serve ; while 
the certain promise of a better future 
brings light into men's eyes and faces, 
and gives them heart to greet the un- 
known with a cheer. 

We ourselves are of the present only, 
and a brief to-morrow. But the forces 
which are working through us are neither 
of to-day's nor yesterday's invention. 
Their one and only source is God. In 

^53 



91 Confusfiou of €ongucief 

the mighty march of human progress 
interruptions may occur; defeats may 
signally be suffered ; a return to lower 
and less worthy levels may be gloomily 
endured. But the endless host of human 
beings, as they make their way across 
the centuries, do not wander : they are 
led. God has planted and established 
certain dominant desires in their hearts, 
certain soaring aspirations in their souls ; 
and by these hopes and aspirations, in- 
stincts and desires. He is leading them 
upon the march. For a time they may 
forget, or deny, or suppress these higher 
instincts. In consequence they go down 
to the somber, wooded valley of humilia- 
tion where the way is lost and the path 
of destiny and progress becomes entirely 
obscured. But presently the flame of 
freedom leaps up again within their 
souls, the light of understanding shines 

254 



out within their minds, and they set forth 
once more to climb great mountains of 
achievement. 

Then they know, for they themselves 
have helped to prove, that right is ever- 
more superior to might. Then they know 
that caliber of character is of more im- 
portance than caliber of cannon. There 
are forces at work in this world stronger 
than bayonets or bullets. Justice carries 
further, travels faster, thunders with a 
silent might that makes of small effect 
the proud inventions and explosive arts 
of man. 

Wherefore, as we view not one nation 
but all nations, not one people but the 
human race itself, we can say with fervor 
as of old : ^* God is our refuge and 
strength: a very present help in time 
of trouble. Therefore will we not fear, 
though the earth be removed, and though 

^55 



^ ConfUiS^ion of Zmqm^ 

the mountains be carried into the midst 
of the sea. For the Lx)rd of Hosts is 
with us and the God of Nations is our 
refuge/' 



THE END 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Dec. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER «N PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



